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THE 



DANGERS OF THE COUNTRY. IS 



BT 



THE AUTHOR OF WAR IN DISGUISE, 



— O miseri, qua tanta insania, cive s ? 

Creditis avectcw hostes ? ■ ■ 

ViRO, 



Neque 



Per nostrum patimur scelu9 
Iracunda Jovera ponere fulmina. 



LONDON: 

MINTED FOR J. BUTTERWORTH, FLEET-STREET J 
AND J. HATCHARD, PICCADUJX 
1807* 



i 






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Fruited by G. Woodlall, Paternoster-raw* 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The first part of this Pamphlet was written, and 
partly sent to press, soon after the ruin of the 
Prussian army was certainly known in England ; 
and when we supposed ourselves to be again left 
alone in the war ; a conjuncture, at which the 
fe lings of the Public, as to the perils of our 
situation, were probably much more in unison 
than now, with those of the Author. At present, 
perhaps, a proposition which he lias assumed, 
viz. that the danger of an invasion, though very 
indistinctly and inadequately conceived, is uni- 
versally admitted to exist, may be far from the 
truth. But he deems it, on this account, onjy 
the more necessary, to raise his feeble voice 
against the indifference and supineness which 
prevail in regard to our public defence ; since the 
apprehension of immediate danger no longer 
tends to correct these faults, and they may, by 
a false sense of security, be fatally confirmed. 



IV 

May the next news from the seat of conti- 
nental war, be of a kind to diminish further the 
apparent importance of his labours ! But, in his 
estimate, our danger from the power of France 
was never more serious and imminent than at 
the present moment. 

January, 21, 1807. 



THE 



DANGERS OF THE COUNTRY 



r 



Sect. i. We may be conquered by France. 

IN the revolutions which overthrow the power and the 
independency of nations, there is nothing more asto- 
nishing than the extreme improvidence which some* 
times prepares their fall. Let us mark in the page of 
history the periods which immediately preceded the 
subjugation of Greece, by Philip and Alexander, the 
dreadful overthrow of Carthage, by Rome, and of 
Rome herself by the Barbarians, and we shall perceive 
that their fate was long very visibly approaching, that 
it might probably have been averted by vigour and 
prudence, but that the devoted nations strangely ne- 
glected the obvious means of self-preservation, till the 
opportunity of using them was lost. 

Hpw deplorably does the age we live in abound with 
similar cases ! 

B 



Nations, however, like individuals, seem rarely if 
ever, to take warning from the fatal errors of each other. 
Such wisdom is indeed cheaply bought, but not so 
cheaply reduced into practice; for the measures of pre- 
ventive prudence generally demand some renunciation 
of present ease, or apparent advantage. It is easy to 
see what timely sacrifices others should have made to 
avoid impending ruin. It is not so easy to make those 
necessary sacrifices ourselves. 

Besides, there seems to be an unaccountable preju- 
dice, a sense of inextinguishable vitality, in the body 
politic as well as natural, which cheats us into a per- 
suasion, that whatever may have befallen others in 
similar circumstances, our own existence is secure. 

'•' All men think all men mortal but themselves." 
The same may be said of nations; and the delusion 
pei haps is still stronger with them, than with indi- 
viduals. 

It seems impossible upon any other principles than 
these, to account for the apathy of the British public 
at the present most tremendous crisis. The torrent of 
French ambition, has now washed away every mound 
that opposed it on the Continent. We stand as on a 
little spot of elevated ground, surrounded with inunda- 
tions ; and while the waters are still rising on every 
side, and rapidly undermining our base, we look on 
with stupid indifference, or torpid inactivity, heedless 
of the means by which safety might be still attained. 

These strictures I hope are not now applicable to 

those with whom the Government of the Country is- 

intrusted.— Measures are probably preparing in the 

Cabinet such as our perilous situation demands : but 

6 



the people at large are not sufficiently awake to the 
tremendous evils which menace them, and the duties 
to which they are called. 

A sufficient proof of this might be found in the 
spirit of personal and party rivalship, which has abounded 
in our late Parliamentary elections, and that exclusive 
attention which they excited throughout the Country 
at large. 

Never in the present reign did the choice of a new 
Parliament produce a greater number of obstinate con- 
tests, and never were important national questions less 
generally involved in the rivalship of contending can- 
didates; yet when has the public mind been more 
closely intent on the concerns of a general election? 
It must have been obvious to every calm observer, that 
the combats of the hustings had more interest than 
the battles in Saxony, that the state of the poll was the 
subject of more anxiety than the advance of the Rus- 
sians, and the subversions of thrones, events of less 
concern than the rejection of a favourite candidate. 

Could this disposition be resolved into a magnani- 
mous contempt of danger, it might perhaps be deemed 
a feature of national character by no means of evil 
omen. The Spartans, on the eve of the battle of Ther- 
mopylae, were seen combing their long hair, and indulg- 
ing in their usual amusements. But this construction 
of the public feelings, though complimentary, would 
not be just. The dangers of the Country I fear have 
not been so much despised, as forgotten ; and the pa- 
triotic emotions which the conjuncture ought to in- 
spire, have been superseded by the nearer interest of 
Borough or Provincial politics, 

B 2 



4 

This, however, is by no means the only indication 
of popular insensibility to the present dangers of the 
Country. 

Have pride, dissipation, or luxury, contracted in any 
degree their accustomed range, or are their votaries less 
intent than before on their favourite pleasures? Has 
the civil war of parties been suspended ; or have we in 
earnest begun t© make our peace with a chastising 
Providence, by religious and moral reformation ? 

The Nations, of antiquity, while they possessed their 
freedom, that true source of patriotic feeling, were 
neither too gay to mourn, too luxurious to retrench, 
too factious to unite, nor too proud to repent and pray, 
in seasons of public danger. A situation like our own, 
at Sparta, at Athens, or at Rome, in their best days, 
would have been marked by gravity and mourning, by 
a suspension of civil feuds, by an emulation in every 
species of private sacrifice to the public service, and by 
such propitiations as their religion taught them to 
offer, to their offended Gods. The most distant danger 
from a foreign enemy, united every Roman in a gene- 
rous self devotion to the State. The rich remitted 
their exactions, the poor renounced their complaints; 
the Patrician forgot his pride, the Plebeian his factions 
discontent, the Tribune his mob-importance, the Sena- 
tors their mutual discord. If the assault or defiance 
of an enemy found them in the heat of civil commo- 
tions, it in a moment put an end to the strife : If the 
people were drawn up by their demagogues on the 
Mons sacer, their citadel of sedition, they descended 
without delay to the Campus Alar this, and crowded 
to be enrolled for the military service of their Country. 
7 



We admire this spirit ; we perceive in it one great 
cause of the long conservation of Roman freedom, 
and an essential basis of Roman greatness. — Yet 
what have Romans, Grecians, or any other people 
ancient or modern, had to attach them to their Coun- 
try, compared with the social blessings of these much 
favoured Islands ? The Sun, in six thousand years, has 
beheld no human beings so happy in their civil con- 
dition as ourselves ; has enlightened no land which its 
inhabitants had so vast an interest in defending as 
Great Britain. 

Whence then that indifference, that strange defect 
at least of patriotic zeal and exertion, which marks 
this arduous crisis ? 

It cannot be the effect of a rational confidence in 
our security, for who is there now that does not admit 
the Country to be in danger ? 

The absurd opinion that England cannot be invadeS 
while we have an invincible fleet, is now rejected by 
every intelligent man, as it always was by men of 
nautical knowledge; and the Government itself has 
long since practically admitted, by various costly pre- 
parations for our interior defence, that a powerful 
descent on our shores is no impossible event. 

Those who formerly thought such an enterprize im- 
practicable, must have rested their opinion on the 
extreme depression of the French Marine, But from 
this state it has already begun to recover, and there 
can be no doubt that unless the enemy should be rash 
enough to expose himself to new Trafalgars, his 
navy will rapidly encrease. When we consider the 
large acquisitions of ships of all kinds, oi naval maga- 



zines, of forests ripe for the axe, of excellent docks, 
and harbours, and even of able seamen, which France 
has unhappily made by conquest during the two last 
campaigns j and when we regard her as mistress of all 
the coasts of continental Europe, from the bottom of 
the Adriatic Gulph to the straights of Gibraltar, and 
from Cape Finisterre to the Baltic, it would be idle 
indeed to suppose that the disparity of her naval power 
to that of the British islands, will long continue to be 
great. 

But even a very inferior fleet to our own, might as 
I shall hereafter shew, give her ample means of in- 
vasion. 

That an invading army would infallibly be repelled 
by the force we at present possess on shore, is a per- 
suasion that may still be too general, yet can hardly 
now maintain its ground in well informed and consi- 
derate minds — It must at least be greatly weakened, 
if not removed, by the late tremendous events on the 
Continent. 

Are we proudly confident in our military prowess? 
So were the renowned battalions of Frederick the 
Great. — The Prussians marched from Berlin as to a 
certain triumph. Intelligent English gentlemen who 
were there at the moment, declare that the general con- 
fidence was extreme ; that it was impossible to make 
the most rational Prussians with whom they conversed, 
admit a doubt of the victorious armies of France being 
defeated by the Prussian tactics ; and that to suggest 
any uneasiness on the subject, was regarded as prepos- 
terous at least, if not insulting. 

Yet where is now that mighty army that was drawn 



up by the veteran Generals of Prussia in the plain of 
Auerstadt ? Dispersed, as with the impetuous breath 
of a whirlwind, or rather the blast of an explosion, its 
scattered fragments were soon to he found only on the 
shores of the Baltic ; and even there were gathered up 
by its enemies. 

The mendacious vanity of the victors here found no 
place Tor exaggeration. — It was strict truth to say that 
a late mighty Monarch, flying from the throne of his 
ancestors across the Oder and the Vistula, carried with 
him only a handful of Guards from the great army which 
he lately commanded, and that with this exception, 
not a man of that vast host, escaped. Neither the 
defeat of Darius at Arbela, or any other victory by 
which Empires have been overthrown, was in this 
respect half so disastrous. 

Where has since been found the proper reserve of re- 
gulars, or of Citizens in arms to repair this misfortune? 
Like the masses of Bohemia and Hungary after the de- 
feats at Uhnand Austerlitz, such forces have not been 
ready to take the field in time, either to stem the tide 
of conquest, or make a new stand for their Country? 
Prussia, like Austria, neglected, alas! to call forth the 
spirit, and prepare the defensive energies of the people 
till the important opportunity was lost. 

If examples like these cannot open the eyes and ex- 
cite the apprehensions of England ; if she can still 
repose on an army, hardly recruited so fast as it is ex- 
hausted by Colonial service, and upon volunteers, 
which from existing defects in their constitution are 
declining in numbers and discipline every hour, it 
rqust be from an infatuation against which it would 
be idle to reason. 



But the truth is, that the national slumber proceeds 
less from a rash confidence, than from inattention to the 
terrible nature of the events, with which we are visibly 
threatened. 

There are objects of apprehension so dreadful in 
their general aspect, that we rarely give ourselves the 
pain to examine them steadily enough to contemplate 
their particular features. Much less do we anticipate 
with a distinct foresight, the consequences which they 
are known to involve. 

Of this kind, is the approaching death of a beloved 
wife or husband. The heart recoils at the idea of such 
an event in the abstract, and we shut our eyes to all its 
concomitant horrors. The sight of long protracted 
agonies, in a frame endeared to us by a thousand tender 
recollections, the plaintive eye imploring from us un- 
availing pity, the tears of children surrounding the 
bed of pain and death, the last fond and sad adieu to 
them and to ourselves, the ghastly lineaments of death 
on a face which had long used to beam upon us with 
intelligence, sensibility, and love ; these, and many 
other sad accompaniments of the loss, are unimagined 
till they are felt; nor are the cheerless hours of widow- 
hood that succeed, the gloom that long broods over the 
once cheerful family table, and winter fireside, the gall 
that now mingles with all the wonted sweets of pa- 
rental affection, the black cloud with which recollec- 
tion suddenly and cruelly darkens' the brief occasional 
sunshine of the mind, subjects of anticipated pain. 

The same, I conceive, is the case in the public 
mind at this juncture, in respect of those possible and 
dreadful events, our being invaded and conquered by 



France. Strangers to the yoke of a foreign master, 
strangers even to the ordinary miseries which belong to 
a state of war in countries which are the theatres of 
its horrors, we have indeed some dread of those events, 
but it is a vague and indefinite apprehension. We do 
not distinguish the many specific evils which would 
make up the aggregate disaster of such a conquest ; 
much less do we look forward to the miseries that 
would unquestionably follow. 

I would endeavour therefore to supply in some mea- 
sure the defects of these loose conceptions, to analyze 
the tremendous mischief which is possibly impending 
over us, to exhibit some of its calamitous elements, 
and point out the exquisite wretchedness which it 
would entail upon my country. We must unavoid- 
ably be soon called upon for very great and very pain- 
ful sacrifices, in order to avert the national ruin with 
which we are menaced by the power of France. Let us 
fairly examine then the impending evil, that we may 
be reconciled to the unpleasant means by which alone 
it can be averted. 

Sect. 2. The effects of such a Conquest Usurpation 

or destruction of the Throne. 

It is needless to insist much on that ordinary, and 
most prominent feature, in the revolutions of kingdoms 
by conquest, the transfer of the royal power, from a 
native to a foreign monarch. It is an evil which the 
loyalty of my countrymen, and their affection to the 
best of sovereigns, will sufficiently appreciate. 

If the ruthless Napoleon has ever spared for a 
while, a prince whom he had power to depose, it has. 
been from motives of policy which would fkid no place 



10 

■in England. He may safely trust a legitimate monarch' 
to wield for a while a feeble and tarnished sceptre on 
the Continent, while his dominions, reduced in extent, 
stripped of their best interior resources, and deprived 
of every outwork that can guard them from invasion, 
are in no condition to oppose his ulterior. projects. It 
may even serve his purposes, to make these degraded 
sovereigns instruments of his rapacity, in exacting for 
his use contributions from their wretched subjects.; as 
well as involuntary ministers to his ambition, in the 
further extension of his conquests. When rendered 
by such means, hateful to their subjects, and to their 
neighbours, they may be more safely commanded to 
descend from their thrones, and make room for some 
upstart successor. He seems even to have a cruel plea- 
sure in this course of proceeding; as the tiger plays 
with its wounded victim, and apparently enjoys its 
dreadful suspense, prior to its final destruction. 

But should this subverter of empires ever become 
master of England, the illustrious House of Hanover 
will have no such protracted torments, nor any equi- 
vocal fate. Our island is not capable of a secure or con- 
venient partition among his satellites. There are no 
conquests beyond us, to which England, like Holland 
or Saxony, may furnish, under a nominal independency, 
a safe and convenient scaffold. And, what is more de- 
cisive, the natural bulwarks of England cannot be re- 
moved. The straights of Dover, cannot, like the 
fortresses on the Rhine, or the passes of the Tyrol, be 
annexed to a hostile state, and the popularity of our 
beloved sovereign, would still more effectually secure 



11 

Ills fill ; for he has a throne in the hearts of his subjects 
that a conqueror could not subvert. 

Perhaps in consideration of our maritime fame, we 
might be honoured with the gift of the Imperial Admiral' 
Jerome Bonaparte, as our new Sovereign Lord ; and he 
might even deign to accept the hand of some female 
descendant of the Princess Sophia, in order to plant 
a new dynasty, on something like hereditary right. 
Nor is it impossible that the male branches of that 
illustrious House, might soon be so disposed of, as to 
leave none who could dispute the legality of the mar- 
riage, or of any title founded upon it England has no 
Salic Law 5 the Usurper is not scrupulous in his means, 
and he has shewn that he knows the value of that here- 
ditary right upon which he has so violently trampled. 

I must admit, however, that it is more probable we 
should not be trusted with any shew of national inde- 
pendence ; but be either reduced avowedly into the form 
of a province, or honoured with the name of a depart- 
ment. If the choice of the French people had any 
weight, such would of course be our destiny ; since 
our insular situation and maritime character, might 
soon convert a nominal, into a real independence. — 
Rome did not think herself safe, while Carthage had 
walls or foundations. 

I leave these prospects without remark to a spirited 
and loyal people, True loyalty, like love, is too deli- 
cate to admit of excitement or expostulation, unless 
from the object of its attachment. 

Sect. 3. Overthrow of the Constitution. 

What shall I say of the subversion of that glorious 
fabric the British Constitution ! We have been lately 



m 

exercising the elective franchise, and if the spirit of 
our contests for representatives in Parliament, at this 
arduous crisis, has in some instances deserved reproof, 
at least we must admire that perfect freedom of choice, 
which so many have been able to exercise. Whether 
more of that freedom is safely attainable than the pre- 
sent scheme of representation afToids, is a question 
which it would be impertinent to discuss in these sheets, 
nor is this a proper season for such discussions. It is 
not when the ship labours in the tempest, and when 
breakers are under her lee, that you would set about 
an alteration in her cabin, or even think of repairing 
her helm. It is easy to find faults in every thing human ; 
but when in danger of losing what we love, we think 
not of its faults, but of its value. He that really loves 
British liberty, therefore will now be disposed to forget 
for a while what he may deem imperfect in it, and 
reflect with fond anxiety on its inestimable worth. 

What nobler civil exhibition did earth ever afford 
than the election of a British House of Commons ! A 
whole people, not in a rude state, or while few in num- 
ber, but when forming a mighty nation, great in arms, 
great in civilization, commerce, and wealth, treely as- 
semble in their various districts to choose their own 
legislators, the organs of their will, the delegates of 
their authority, the guardians of their rights. If in- 
fluence be used by the existing Administration, what 
is the Administration but a power, which the attach- 
ment of former representatives of the pec pie, as much 
perhaps as the choice of the Sovereign, has created or 
upheld? Influence too is used in an opposite direc- 
tion, not perhaps with less zeal or effect. Man is not 
- 



13 

made universally to act in society from purely sponta- 
neous motives. But force, brute force, that engine of 
usurped authority, that instrument of almost every 
other human government, however legitimate, in mat- 
ters that concern the State, is driven from the hallowed 
precincts of our elective freedom, like a demon from 
consecrated ground. The ordinary instruments of 
monarchical power, the military, though here never 
employed but in subservience to, and at the requisition 
of the laws, are forbidden to approach the place where 
these high fianchises are exercised, lest even the shadow 
of constraint should seem to diminish their lustre. 

Would French conquest leave us such liberties to 
boast ? Let us look to Switzerland, to Holland, to 
France herself, for an answer to that question. 

The freedom of our constitution, mortifying and 
opprobrious in its example to Frenchmen, is the last 
of our blessings that the usurper would consent to 
spare. To subvert this freedom, by the inviting image 
of which his throne is perpetually endangered, is more 
than ambition, more than revenge, or the thirst of glory, 
the true object of his arms, He would rather by far, 
leave us our political independency, and our commerce, 
than our civil institutions. 

I dare not venture however to affirm, that we should 
have no more parliaments. It is his policy, to retain, 
the name of every sacred establishment, the spirit and 
use of which he takes away : and we should probably, 
therefore, in losing the substance of Parliamentary re- 
presentation, be insulted with its empty form. 

I am not sure even that we should not have mock 
contested elections : the mummery of Garret Green, 



n 

might be transferred to Covent Garden or Guildhall. 
But woe to those electors, or to that populace* which 
should be simple enough to suppose that the return 
of members was indeed submitted to their choice. 
A vote against the nominee of the court, or a hiss at the 
Frenchified hireling, would fatally. mark the disaffection 
of its author* and ere long he would have leisure in 
a dungeon to bewail his temerity and folly. 

Sect. 4. Subversion of our Liberty and Laws. 

Our freedom of choice, however, and our elective 
franchises in general, are rather buttresses of civil liberty, 
than the happy edifice itself. That inestimable blessing, 
chiefly consists, in the supremacy of known and equal 
laws, in their upright administration, and in the secu- 
rity of the individual, against the oppression of the civil 
magistrate, or the state. 

And here, what people ever had so much to lose, as 
the inhabitants of this favoured land ! 

When I enter that venerable hall which for many 
centuries has been the seat of our superior tribunals, 
and contemplate the character of the courts which are 
busily exercising their several jurisdictions around it, 
I am almost tempted to forget the frailty of man, 
and the imperfection of his noblest works. There, 
justice supported by liberty and honour, sits enthroned 
as in her temple, elevated far above the region of all 
ignoble passions. There, j udicial character is so strong- 
ly guarded by ages of fair example, by public confi- 
dence* by conscious independence* and dignity of 
station, that it is scarcely a virtue to be just. There, 
the human intellect nourished by the morning dew of 
industry, and warmed by manly emulation, puts forth 



IS 

its most vigorous shoots, and consecrates them to the 
noblest of all sublunary ends. 

If the rude emblems of heavenly intelligence with 
which our pious ancestors have adorned that majestic 
roof, were really what they were meant to represent, 
they might announce to us that they had looked down 
upon an administration of justice, advancing progres- 
sively, from the days of our Henries, at least, in correct- 
ness, liberality, purity, and independence, till it has' 
arrived at a degree of perfection, never before witnessed 
upon earth, and such as the children of Adam are not 
likely ever to surpass. 

This blessing, the fairest offspring of freedom, or 
rather its purest essence^may like all other advantages, 
be undervalued by those who have always enjoyed it, 
and know only by report the evils of a different lot. 
But those Englishmen who have travelled far enough, 
to see ignorance, prejudice, servility, and oppression, 
in the seat of justice, know how to appreciate and 
admire the tribunals of their native land. 

Nor is the protecting power of our superior courts, 
less distinguished than their purity. In what other 
realm can an independent judge, deliver him whom 
the government has consigned to the darkness of a 
dungeon? Where else is the sword of the state 
chained to its scabbard, t^ll drawn by the sentence 
of the law ? And who but an Englishman, can defy, 
while judges are incorrupt, the proudest minister, or 
most insidious minion of a court 1 

. The unique and inestimable institution of trial by 
jury, is an item only, though a proud and precious one, 
of this glorious account. The Englishman's life, his 



16 

honour, and, with some reasonable exceptions, his 
property too, are placed not only under the protection 
of the laws, but under the further safeguard of his 
neighbours and equals in private life, without whose 
sanction, solemnly given upon oath, he cannot be con- 
demned. 

Such, my countrymen, are some of the blessings of 
our freeborn jurisprudence; and these, I need not tell 
you, would all cease to exist, if we fell under the 
dominion of France. 

None of you can be so ignorant as to suppose, that 
Buonaparte would allow a Habeas Corpus, a jury, or a 
gaol-delivery, to the victims of his state-craft or 
revenge. He has replaced by a hundred bastilles, the 
one which he has assisted to destroy. A thousand 
miserable prisoners groan in his dungeons for one that 
met that fate under the unfortunate Bourbons. 
He has found the secret also, of obtaining, from 
.civil as well as military tribunals, a blind obedience to 
his will. 

It cannot be supposed that he will submit to the 
restraint of laws in a province, while he rejects it in 
imperial France. We must bid farewell therefore, 
should he become our master, to protecting laws, to 
independent and upright judges, to trial by jury, and 
to all those privileges which now constitute our-security 
from civil or military oppression. The innocent will 
no longer be able to lie down in peace, secure that they 
shall not be torn from their families ere morning, to be 
examined by tortures, or perish in the gloom of a 
dungeon* 

From that time, integrity will retire from the seat 



17 

of justice, and corruption take its place. Judge- 
ments, in civil cases, will be sold ; in criminal, will be 
dictated by the luthless voice of oppression. Fraud 
and violence will every where prevail, and cunning servi- 
lity be the only path to safety. If any of our laws 
remain unaltered, they will be such only as may serve, 
when no longer guarded by the checks of a free consti- 
tution, to multiply the modes, and aggravate the weight 
of despotism. 

Let us look next to the infallible and total suppres- 
sion of the liberty of our press. 

While any portion of this privilege remains in any 
country, there is, if not a hope of deliverance, at least 
some consolation for the oppressed. 

The minions of power may be kept in check, by the 
publicity of transactions which, though not directly 
arraigned, would speak their own condemnation. But 
if not, the victim of despotism will at least know that he 
is pitied, perhaps admired and applauded, by his vir- 
tuous fellow citizens ; and that reflection will make his 
chains sit lighter. 

But no such consolation remains where the power of 
Buonaparte prevails. He has made a league with dark- 
ness. He has declared war against the mutual intel- 
ligence and sympathy, as well as the happiness of 
mankind. He has not indeed destroyed the organs of 
public information; but he has done infinitely worsq: 
he has appropriated them all to his own tyrannic use, 
compelled them to utter all his falsehoods and calum- 
nies, and forbad them to speak or whisper with any 
breath but his own. 

The government of the press by the French Bour- 

C 



IS 

bofts, or even by the Spanish Inquisition, was wholly 
of a negative kind. Roberspierre, his associates, 
and successors, imposed no restraints on the press, un- 
less through the unavoidable terror of their power ; 
and we learned, even from the Parisian journals, the. 
worst crimes of those sanguinary rulers. 

But Buonaparte, more crafty, though not less cruel, 
than his predecessors, suppresses every act of Govern- 
ment that he wishes to conceal, as well as every adverse 
remark on his conduct; while he obliges every vehicle 
of public intelligence to circulate, as on its own autho- 
rity, whatever impostures or forgeries he chuses to 
propagate. The victims of his tyranny, if not 
plunged in oblivion, are defamed in their characters, 
and misrepresented in their conduct ; yet find no 
possible means of reply. They are not only deprived 
of liberty and life, but defrauded of the sympathy of 
their friends, of their families, and mankind. 

Fancy not then, Englishmen, that under the op- 
pression of this unparalleled tyrant, you would have the 
consolation of knowing that your most cruel wrongs, 
or the honourable fortitude with which you might 
sustain them, were known and pitied by your Country. 
You might be tortured to death, like Pichegru, and 
accused of suicide; you might be murdered, like 
D'Enghien, and represented as convicted assassins. 
You might be buried in a dungeon, like Toussaint, 
and libelled as perfidious traitors. Nay you might, 
like his unfortunate family, be hidden for ever from 
the world, or secretly destroyed in prison, without a 
Voice that could convey to the public, or even to your 



39 

anxiously inquiring friends, the cause or nature of your 
fate. 

It would be endless to enumerate the various and 
pcciiliar miseries which the sudden subversion of our 
liberties would produce, among a generous and high 
spirited people. 

When Buonaparte bade Frenchmen resume their 
chains, it was little more than a change from one form 
of slavery to another. Even in their short-lived zeal 
for liberty and equality, they never for a moment tasted 
the rich fruit of genuine freedom. But Englishmen 
have enjoyed for ages that inestimable blessing; and 
how shall we be able to bear its sad reverse ? How shall 
we endure the contemptuous despotism of office, the 
exactions of rapacious commissaries, and the harsh 
controul of a military police ? 

We must lay aside, my countrymen, that indigna- 
tion at injustice in the exercise of power, which is so 
natural to the free born mind, when stung by the sense 
of oppression. We must also suppress that generous 
sympathy for the wrongs of others, which is so easily 
excited in the breasts of an English populace. That 
amiable feeling, now too often abused with tales of 
imaginary oppression, must then be suppressed, even on 
the most real and extreme provocation. Fatal would 
it then be to murmur, when we saw our innocent 
countrymen, our friends, or dearest connections, 
dragged away by the rude hand of power, at the man- 
date of some angry despot, to imprisonment or death. 

The foulest corruption, the basest perfidy, the most 
savage cruelty, when clothed with the authority of our 
new masters, must pass without reprehension, or audi- 

C a 



20 

bie complaint ; nay must be treated by us with lowly 
submission and respect. 

We must lay aside also that proud sense of personal 
inviolability, which we now cherish so fondly ; and 
what is justly prized still more, the civil sanctity of our 
homes. The Englishman's house must be his castle 
no more. 

Instead of our humble watchmen to wish us respect- 
fully good night when returning to our abodes in the 
evening, we shall be challenged at every turning by 
military patroles; and shall be fortunate, if we meet no 
pert boy in commission, or ill natured trooper, to re- 
buke us with the back of his sword, or with a lodging 
in the guard-house, for a heedless or tardy reply. Per- 
haps after all, when we arrive at our homes,, instead of 
that quiet fire-side at which we expected to sit in do- 
mestic privacy with our wives and children, and relieve- 
our burthened hearts by sighing with them over the 
sorrows of our Country, we shall find some ruffian 
familiars of the police on a domiciliary visit ; or some 
insolent young officers, who have stepped in unasked to 
relieve their tedium while on guard,, by the conversa- 
tion of our wives and daughters. It would be danger- 
pus, however, to offend such unwelcome guests; or 
even not to treat them with "all the respect due to 
brave warriors who have served under Napoleon the 
Great. 

- B&t should we escape such intruders for the evening,, 
still we must lie down uncertain whether our dwellings 
will. be. left unviolated till the morning. A tremendous 
noise will often at midnight rouse the father of a family 
from his sleep, and he will hear a harsh voice command- 

5 



ing to open the gate, through which its hapless master 
will soon pass to return no more. 

These are but a small part of those intolerable re- 
verses in point of civil government to which English- 
men would be doomed to submit. I will however pursue 
no further their odious detail ; but proceed to another 
consequence of the supposed conquest — the transition 
from opulence to ruin. 

Sect. 5. Destruction of the Funds, and ruin of 
property in general. 

It cannot be necessary to prove, that the rapid de- 
cline, if not the immediate ruin, of our manufactures 
and commerce, would be a certain effect of subjection 
to a foreign power. 

These envied possessions of England, would be the 
favourite spoils of the conqueror ; and though he might 
not find it easy to remove, it would be perfectly so to 
destroy them. Indeed his utmost efforts to preserve 
them to us, could we expect such a benevolent at- 
tempt, would certainly be fruitless. They are the 
creatures of general confidence and credit, of legal 
security, and of the peculiar excitements which have 
been held forth to commercial industry and enterprise, 
by the genius of our happy constitution. Still more do 
they owe their extent and prosperity to that maritime 
greatness, which they reciprocally nourish and sustain. 
They depend much also, on what would of course im- 
mediately vanish, the confidence and respect of foreign 
nations, and those treaties which give us a preference 
in their markets. Need I add, that another of their 
grand supports, the commerce of the East, would no 



22 

longer be ours ; nor those Colonies which we value too 
much. 

But it is idle to dwell on such remarks. As well 
might we expect the tree to flourish after its roots are 
cut off, as our commerce or manufactures to survive 
the loss of our power, independency, and freedom. 

A still more awful view of the effects of conquest, 
will be found in the contemplation of our public 
funds. 

Is any man absurd enough to expect, that the annui- 
ties or the Stock-holders, will be paid under the go- 
vernment of Buonaparte ? I fear there are at least many 
who have not thought seriously upon the question, 
or reflected on the certainty of the opposite event, and 
its truly dreadful consequences : for otherwise we 
should certainly never hear of the weight of taxes, or of 
financial dangers from the war, when the security of 
the Country is at stake. 

The speedy wreck of the funds is demonstrated, the 
moment it is ascertained that commerce and manufac- 
tures must be ruined : for the whole current of the 
revenue has now barely force enough to keep the 
immense wheels of our finances in motion, and carry 
them smoothly through their annual revolutions. 
The loss of commerce and manufactures, let it be re- 
membered, is not merely the loss of an equal portion of 
duties in the customs and excise; though that alone 
would be fatal. It involves also the decline of various 
collateral branches of revenue ; of the duties on income, 
of assessed taxes, and all the various direct and indirect 
contributions, of the Merchant, the Manufacturer, their 
families and dependents, It leads also to a more than 



23 

proportionate increase of parochial contributions, those 
great drawbacks on the national resources. 

But if our funds could possibly survive the loss of 
commerce and manufactures, their vitality would cer- 
tainly not be proof against the grasp of a rapacious 
Government Buonaparte would assuredly find other 
uses for our remaining revenue, than that of paying 
dividends at the Bank, to the public creditors ofEngland. 

I know not how many tens or hundreds of thousands 
of French Soldiers, it might be thought necessary to 
station here, for the support of the new Government : 
but beyond doubt we should, like Holland, and the 
conquered Countries on the Rhine, be honoured with 
the presence of a strong army of the best troops of the 
Great Nation, who would invite us to practise in a 
very liberal way towards them, the virtues of hos- 
pitality. 

We should also have to provide for the splendour of 
a Royal or Proconsular Court, which would ill second 
the views of the magnificent Napoleon, if it did not 
compensate for the want of native dignity, by a luxury 
and extravagance far surpassing inexpence the charges of 
a legitimate government. Supposing however, that our 
revenue should exceed the immense demands of our 
new civil and military establishments, still who can 
doubt that the surplus would be drawn away into the 
Treasury of the Great Nation, or the Privy Coffers of 
its Imperial Master? Unhappy creditors, to whom 
above twenty-two Millions a year are now issued in 
public annuities, your rights would be a weak obstacle 
to the avarice of your Conqueror, even though his ap- 
petite for plunder were not sharpened by necessity, 



The Conquest of Europe, let it be considered, is a 
costly thing ■ and so must long be the maintenance of 
those prodigious armies, and the enriching of those 
numberless needy instruments, military and civil, by 
which the conquest must be maintained. But the Con- 
tinent is already impoverished. Even France herself has 
been lately obliged to pay her contributions in kind. If all 
the millions, therefore, which this country must raise 
in order to be solvent, could be still raised when our 
freedom is no more, not one of them, we may be sure, 
would be spared in compassion to the British Stock- 
holder When solvency should become plainly hope- 
less, and a small composition be all that justice itself 
could offer, our new Government would not foolishly 
embarrass itself with the trouble of apportioning such a 
pittance among the hungry multitude, but take the 
short and simple course of shutting up the books at 
once. 

Without therefore stopping to enquire, whether 
Bank Paper would retain its value after the supposed 
conquest, or whether any other medium of payment 
could be found, I may safely assume, that with the 
independency of our country, the dividends at the Bank 
would cease. It is not even too much to assert, that 
a stockholder, be' ore in the receipt of thousands per 
annum, might be unable to pay for his dinner. 

That this sudden annihilation of our funds, would 
be a certa n effect of the conquest, will probably, 
not be disputed by any reasoning mind. Let us 
pause then awhile, and contemplate that dreadful event. 
Men are very apt to deceive themselves on this subject, 
by false analogies in the history of other countries* 



25 

H America became a bankrupt to her own Citizens; so 
did the French Republic ; and the consequences, no 
doubt, were dreadful ; but they were endured— they 
were even exceeded by other calamities of the same un- 
fortunate periods." ] 

But have we considered the essential and fearful dif- 
ferences, between our own public debt, and that of 
America or France ? 

First, as to its amount. — The sums for which those 
countries failed, bore no proportion to the mass of their 
general property. The people collectively, lost not a 
hundredth part, perhaps, of their possessions. But 
Great Britain owes, and chiefly to her own subjects, 
above six hundred millions sterling, bearing an interest 
of above twenty-two millionsyearly; and the whole rental 
of our lands, estimated even at the rate to which the arti- 
ficial effects of this very debt has raised it, does not ex- 
ceed twenty-five millions.* If the rental be taken at 
the value, to which the fall of our funds would rapidly 
reduce it, the loss of the public creditors collectively, 
would greatly exceed the whole remaining income of 
the country, except that which is produced by com- 
merce, manufactures, and other modes of active in- 
dustry. The amount of income that might be derived 
from such sources, after the national ruin here sup- 
posed, cannot easily be estimated ; but it would un- 
questionably become inadequate to the support of the 
millions who now depend upon it, and would by its sud- 
den fall, prodigiously augment the mass of the general dis- 

* This was Mr. fitfs estimate for the purpose of the Inccms 

Tax. 



£6 

tress more directly occasioned by the wreck of the funds. 
It would probably, on the whole, be no extravagant con- 
jecture, that by the mediate and immediate, direct 
and collateral, effects of this great calamity, one half of 
all the income of the kingdom derived from actual pro* 
perty, would be suddenly annihilated. 

Happy, however, comparatively would the case be, 
if the consequence only were, that each individual pos- 
sessed of property lost a half part of his income ; or if 
the loss were to be in any degree equally divided. On 
the contrary, to a very great proportion of our 
stockholders, the sudden effect would be the loss of 
all that they possess ; an instant reduction from opu- 
lence or competency, to total and absolute ruin. 

Dreadfully in other respects, would such a case be 
distinguished from those of other Nations, in which 
public insolvency has occurred. Never elsewhere 
was public credit so well established on the basis 
of long experienced security, and so upheld by the firm 
pillars of public principle, and constitutional controuls, 
that men have been confident enough to trust their all, 
to the integrity and prudence of the Government. Nor 
ever elsewhere was property so widely diffused, that 
multitudes of all classes, from the Peer to the Peasant, 
had a pledge of this nature to confide. In other in- 
stances of National Bankruptcy therefore, it has been 
the calamity, not of the many, but the few; and even 
to these, has been but a partial loss. Nay, it has prin- 
cipally fallen upon those to whom it was rather an ordi- 
nary casualty of commercial adventure, than an unfore- 
seen and total privation of actual property, supposed to 
have been realized, and placed beyond the reach of 



27 

hazard. Foreign Stock, like the share of a new loan, 
or canal subscription, has been rather a subject of gain- 
ful speculation, than a depository for quiescent capital, 
invested with a view to fixed and permanent income. 

From the same causes another distinction, still more 
deplorable, has arisen. There are periods in the life of 
almost every man who possesses property, in which its 
security is far more important to him than its increase, 
and when this creature of society, acquires in his eyes 
its highest interest and value. Such is the case with 
the Father and the Husband, when, in the contempla- 
tion of death, he sits down to exercise the power and 
the duty of making his last will, and providing for the 
well being of those who are dearest to him, after his de- 
cease. In such cases, what Testator but an English- 
man has generally thought of committing the whole 
subsistence of his widow and infant children, to the 
security of the public funds ? But here, that has not 
only been the frequent, it has been the favourite and 
ordinary course, even with the most prudent parents and 
husbands, who have had personal property to invest. 
The funds having long been deemed equally secure 
with real estate, have been esteemed the most convenient 
depositary for the property of those who, in respect of 
their years or sex, are unable to improve or manage it 
for themselves. 

Our courts of Equity, too, in the exercise of their 
controul over Executors and Trustees, and in their 
protection of the estates of married women and infants, 
have followed the same course. The most conserva* 
tory and beneficial application of personal estate, under 
the direction of those Courts, has been thought to be 



an investment in the purchase of Bank Annuities ; and 
a great multitude oi widows and orphans, are at this 
hour receiving their daily bread from the interest of 
monies so invested, not through the providence of 
their deceased relations alone, but by the decrees of our 
civil tribunals. 

The certainty of punctual half yearly payments, 
and the convenience with which they are receiv- 
ed, have also induced persons advanced in years, or 
retiring from business, to invest their capitals in the 
public funds, preferably to all other .securities ; and it 
is probable, that among twenty such persons living in 
retirement on their incomes, Landholders excepted, 
scarcely more~ than one could be found, that does not 
chiefly or wholly depend on his half yearly dividends 
at the Bank, for his -subsistence. 

There is besides, a virtual and indirect dependency 
of capital and income on the national funds, which 
is scarcely less comprehensive than that which is direct 
and immediate-; and which also involves alarge propor- 
tion of theaged and helpless. The creditors orannuitants 
of public companies, the bond creditors of private 
merchants, nay even in great measure the mortgagees 
of real estate, would find the wreck of the public funds 
a source of general ruin. 

The mortgagee indeed might be safe, when his loan, 
and ail prior incumbrances taken together, bear but a 
small proportion to the value of the estate ; but in that 
case only : because it is demonstrable that as the value 
of land has risen progressively with the growth of our 
funds, the annihilation of the latter would reduce that 
walue almost to its ancient level 5 while the enormous 



increase of poor rates, the effect of general ruin* would 
sink the landholders net revenue, out of which the 
interest of incumbrances must be paid, still more per- 
haps than the value of his capital. 

And here we may perceive a new range of -calamity* 
within which the families even of our most opulent 
landholders would fall. Fortunate is that real estate, 
which is not heavily charged with jointures, and por- 
tions for younger children, and with mortgages, and other 
incumbrances besides, which are often prior in polnft 
of charge to those family burthens. 

The interest of the proprietor therefore might hz 
wholly sunk in the general wreck, should it materially 
lower his rental; and so might the whole incomes of 
all his nearest relations. It is highly probable however, 
that the Estates of the great landed proprietors would 
soon be -confiscated, and given to the officers of ths 
army appointed to keep us in subjection. The policy 
of William the Norman would furnish, an inviting 
precedent to our new Conqueror, and would perhaps 
be the best mean of finally breaking down the British 
spirit of the County 

In short all who have property of any species, would 
share soon or late in the common disaster, while a verrr 
great majority of them would be instantly deprived by 
it of their whole subsistence. 

Nor would this calamity be limited to the loss cf 
actual possessions. How many parents and husbands 
are there now in this Kingdom, whose sole hope that 
a helpless family will not want bread after their de- 
cease, is built upon life insurances I To susiaim 
this hope, multitudes have long been paying pre- 



3v 

miums which they could ill afford, and renouncing 
perhaps, in these costly times, long 7 accustomed gratifi- 
cations, that they might avoid the intolerable dread, of 
leaving a beloved wife and children in absolute indi- 
gence and want. 

But what will become of the security of life insu- 
rances, when the national funds are no more ? Ask 
the Directors of those great public Companies whose 
credit is the most undoubted, and they will tell you 
that their whole capital consists of Stock, or other 
public securities ; and that when the State shall become 
insolvent, their policies maybe thrown into the fire. 

Where then, in this dreadful case, will the unfortu- 
nate, though not improvident man, who had relied upon 
such insurances, find any refuge from his cares ? He 
had not property to lose, but he has lost much more. 
He is bereft of the chief human consolation, from 
which he used to derive comfort in the prospect of 
approaching dissolution. Perhaps he has already 
entered upon the confines of the grave > a 
broken constitution, or the debility of age, preclude 
the hope of his seeing another summer, and still more of 
his saving, by future industry, a provision for his family. 
A faithful wife therefore who is beginning to feel the 
infirmities of declining years, and beloved daughters 
who have no means of providing for their own sup- 
port, must soon be left exposed to all the horrors' of 
want. Who can conceive the sharpness of parental and 
conjugal misery, in situations like these 1 

Without attempting to pursue further the dreadful 
effects of National Bankruptcy into their numberless ra- 
mifkations i I would ask the considerate reader, what pro- 

i 



portion would subsist between such a case as this, and 
any revolution of property that the world has yet seen? 
The funding system, which alone could produce such 
terrible consequences., is of very modern growth, and 
from its worst casualties experienced in other countries, 
a National Bankruptcy in England would differ as 
widely, as an earthquake in a crowded city, differs from 
a shipwreck on the ocean. 

Ruin, though it may elsewhere have invaded the 
helpless, has not made them its peculiar prey; but 
here, its most numerous victims would be found 
among the feeble, the aged, the widow, and 
the orphan ; among those who are the least able to 
struggle against the waves of adversity, and who 
on the loss of their property, would be destitue of 
every resource. Tens, or even hundreds of thousands, 
of hapless Englishmen, would in one day, be reduced 
from ease and affluence, to extreme and remediless 
distress. Elegance, would be exchanged for rags, 
luxury, for hunger and cold, comfort and security, for 
misery and despair. 

I know not even whether the benign institution of 
our poor laws, and our many charitable foundations for 
the relief of the aged and destitute, would not ag- 
gravate the general distress. Most of the latter, would 
be entirely deprived of the funds provided for their 
support; and the multitudes of poor to be sustained by 
parochial rates, would becomea burthen scarcely support, 
able by the impoverished contributors, reduced as they 
would greatly be in number, as well as in fortune. 
Persons in the upper and middle ranks of society, 
would be consequently the less able to assist each other in 



32 



the dreadful event supposed. The hand of friend-* 
ship or benevolence, would be arrested by the grasp of 
the tax-gatherer. 

Most persons have friends in whose affectionate sym- 
pathy they think a resource would be found, under the 
greatest malice of fortune ; but in this tremendous case, 
whole circles of the dearest connections, or most fa- 
miliar acquaintances, would all find themselves under 
the sad necessity of soliciting, instead of being able to 
impart, relief. Their fortunes being all sunk in the same 
enormous vortex, they would be in no more capacity to 
assist each other, than passengers in the same ship* when 
she goes to pieces on the rocks, or hungry manners on 
the same desolate island. Or could a wretched family 
invoke the aid of some acquaintance or friend, who had 
still some landed income, or other means of support* 
they would find him pre-occupied by nearer claims -, or 
so surrounded with supplicants, the objects of equal ' 
sympathy, as to have but a mere useless pittance to 
afford. The best hope of the miserable many, there- 
fore, would be to partake of such parochial relief, as 1 
ruined country might still be able to give, to the com- 
mon mass of its paupers. 

How terrible would it be for an accomplished and 
virtuous female-, who till now had been accustomed 
to all the comforts, and elegant enjoyments, of an easy 
fortune, to become, with her lovely children, an in- 
mate of a parish workhouse ! Yet those receptacles of 
coarse and unsightly indigence, from which even the 
more decent of our poor, now turn with disgust, would 
then become an asylum, to which the most refined and 
delicate might be driven to resort. They might wish, 



m 

perhaps, that the humanity of their country had pro- 
vided no such sad alternative to famine ; but the im- 
perious requisitions of hunger, or a conscience revolt* 
ing at suicide, would compel the starving individual, 
and much more the wretched family, to protract a 
painful existence even on those loathsome terms. 

The prospect of such calamities is enough to make 
an Englishman view with anxiety and alarm* those 
appearances of general opulence, in which we are too 
apt to exult. 

When we walk in the neighbourhood of this grand 
metropolis, through any of those pleasant villages with 
which it is surrounded, we see the wealth and prosperity 
of the nation, in their most pleasing and captivating 
dress. The road is bordered on each side, and the green 
or common surrounded, with country retreats of all di- 
mensions, from the stately villa, down to the little 
painted box, which mocks the tax-gatherer with its 
single window : and through the whole range of the 
scale, all is neatness and comfort. Almost every 
mansion, however small, is provided with its par- 
terre in front, and its garden behind; unless fortu- 
nate enough to possess a more extensive allotment 
of land, in the centre of which, surrounded with or- 
namental shrubs and flower-plots, it exhibits a still 
more inviting shew of retirement and independence. 

Yet these are the abodes of men engaged in the busy 
occupations of commerce ; and a great many of them 
too, in subordinate stations; men, who in any other 
country, and forty years ago in our own, would have 
been shut up in the smoaky town, ujader the same roof 
with their counting houses or shops. 

D 



34 

If we pass in the morning, the masters of these happy 
retreats are seen issuing with cheerfulness, refreshed by 
the pure breezes of the country, to repair on horseback 
or in carriages, to their daily business in London. In 
the afternoon, we see them returning in the same easy 
and commodious way, to enjoy their family comforts ; 
or already sat down to the social meal, which waited 
their arrival. In the interior of these rural mansions, 
all is answerable to their outward appearance. The 
smallest of them can boast, if aot elegance, at least, 
neatness, cleanness, and convenience in its furniture, 
and plenty, if not luxury, on its table, greater than 
are always seen in other countries, even in the man- 
sions of the great. 

This wide extent of domestic enjoyments, exhibits 
more clearly, as well as more pleasingly, the general 
affluence pi the country, than even the profusion of 
private carriages, and the many splendid equipages, 
which crov/d the roads to a great distance from the 
metropolis. 

Often in the contemplation of such scenes, have I 
shuddered at the thought of that sad reverse which may 
be near at hand. How possible is it that in a. 
lew years, aye, in a few months, all this unexampled 
comfort and happiness, may vanish, like the painted, 
clouds in a western sky, before an evening tempest ! 

These enjoyments ot the merchants, and other busy 
actors in the various industry of London, may be com-* 
pared to the tulips and hyacinths which we sometimes 
see blowing in flower-glasses in their parlour windows. 
The numberless fibres from which they derive their nu- 
triment, are not inserted in the solid earth of real pro- 



35 

perty, but float in the loose element of public credit ; 
and the wreck of the funds would be as fatal to them, 
as the fall of the glass cylinder to the flower. 

Our Merchants would have again to return to the 
parsimonious habits, and rigid industry of their fore- 
fathers. Instead of being able to unite as now, the 
profits of the town, with the health and pleasures of 
the Country, at the charge of two residences, and the 
expensive means of communication between them, 
singularly fortunate would be that individual, who 
could find, by immuring himself and his family in the 
heart of the Metropolis, and by using every resource 
that painful industry and parsimony could there ex- 
plore, the means of escaping want. 

Those numberless costly villas, therefore, which now 
arrest the eye in every direction, those interminable 
ranges of less conspicuous, but not less happy dwellings, 
which form the suburbian villages, would soon be de- 
serted ; and would fall to the ground almost as rapidly 
as they rose from it. In a few yeais, a walk six miles 
from London, instead of exciting, as now, lively emo- 
tions of patriotic joy and admiration, would be like an 
evening visit- to a Church yard ; presenting nothing 
but the shadows of impotent ambition, and the moul- 
dering records of departed happiness. The wretched 
survivor of the freedom of his country, would be 
happy to escape from that wide circle that now com- 
prises the most interesting displays of our commercial- 
affluence, to leave Hampstead, or Woodford, Cfapham, 
or Norwood, behind him, in order to find a country 
less incumbered with ruins, and deliver himself awhile 
from the tqrments of visual recollection. 

D z 



36 

Sect. 6. Dreadful extent and effects of the contribti* 
dons that would be exacted. 

In this sad foresight of the desolation of my 
Country, I have passed over unnoticed some of the 
earlier and more terrible effects of conquest. 

On the probable carnage in the field, it would 
be uncandid to lay any stress. England I trust would 
not be lost without a struggle worthy of such a stake; 
and though the astonishing celerity of our enemy's 
operations, might defraud a large proportion of our 
military defenders of the chance of dying for their 
Country, yet there probably would be some actions 
fertile enough in slaughter. But it would be unfair to 
reckon this among the aggravations of our fate ; for 
scenes would soon ensue, which would make the 
living envy the dead their peace, as well as their 
glory. Let us rather look therefore, to some of the 
manifold and endless oppressions which would await 
the hapless survivors. 

I have generally and faintly sketched some parts 
of the wretchedness of losing property ; but a worse 
mischief will be the false repute of possessing it. 

Here again we are in danger of misapplying, by false 
analogies, the lessons of experience. In other Countries 
which have been conquered by France, their impo- 
verished and exhausted state has been generally known 
to the victors. They have been either the seats of war, 
and drained by previous contributions \ or like Holland r 
conquered under circumstances which made it pru- 
dent to practise forbearance, till time had gradually 
revealed the real indigence of the people. In other 
cases too, a native government has been made the 



s? 

instrument of exactions ; and its representations, 
the sincerity of which there has been little room 
to doubt, have sometimes induced the Conquerors to 
moderate their extreme requisitions. At worst, such 
a Government has been permitted to regulate, equalize, 
and soften, the actual collection. The fate of these 
Countries has nevertheless been severe enough ; and 
much more so than they have dared to reveal, through 
any public channels of complaint. 

But if England be conquered, it will be under cir- 
cumstances which will leave France nothing to fear from 
the odium which she may contract by the utmost rapa- 
city of conduct; and to a native British Government, 
we shall unquestionably not be intrusted. 

What is a still more fearful distinction, our Enemies 
have the most extravagant ideas of our public and in- 
dividual wealth. Far from understanding the great 
financial difficulties under which we actually labour, 
they suppose us to have gold enough yet in reserve to 
subsidise the whole continent forages; and that instead 
of being impoverished, we have been greatly enriched by 
the war. 

I ask then, what eloquence, or what attainable proofs, 
would serve to convince these rapacious masters, that 
the largest contribution, or the greatest number of heavy 
contributions, which they might successively impose 
upon us, were too much for our purses to yield ? Sums 
would soon be required, which the subordinate Admini- 
strators of finance for the Country at large, would find, it 
impossible to raise. Our Tyrants would then perhaps 
apportion the charge, upon counties, cities, towns* 
and even parishes. But the inefficacy of this, and every 



38 

other resort, would infallibly sooner or later bring the 
levy home to our houses, by the mode of individual 
assessments ; and a system of inquisitorial exaction and 
oppression would ensue, more cruel than ever before 
existed upon earth. 

Let the owner of an elegant villa, or sumptuous town 
mansion, consider how he would be able to satisfy a mili- 
tary commissary of his poverty, when called upon for a 
thousand guineas ; or let the master of a handsome house 
either in town or country, reflect how he could prove 
his inability to pay a hundred ? Each indeed might truly 
allege, that he had not one guinea in his possession or 
power, that his wealth had been annihilated by the pub- 
lic bankruptcy, and that his daily subsistence now de- 
pended upon the credit which he still found, for a while, 
with his tradesmen, or upon the compassionate assistance 
of friends. But all this would be regarded as common 
and stale pretence, which every man might set up, which 
could never be clearly in vestigated,and which must there- 
fore be generally disallowed. The unhappy man perhaps 
might truly add, that his plate had already been seized, 
his cabinets rifled, and his most valuable moveables sold, 
to satisfy former requisitions. But this would be 
considered only as evidence of former contumacy, 
and systematic deception. The splendid or genteel 
manner, in which he would be known recently to 
have lived, would be deemed a presumption against 
him paramount to every proof that could be offered of 
present poverty or distress. 

In truth, nothing would be more natural than the 
surmise, that poverty was a pretence to elude the de- 
mands of the state. With many, their pleas of 



59 

Inability, if not wholly groundless, would at least be 
-exaggerated statements ; and the detection of falsehood 
in some cases, would seera to justify incredulity in 
all. Besides, after every allowance made for the long 
use of our paper representatives for money, it would 
be very difficult for a foreigner to believe that so small a 
quantity of specie remained in the country, as would 
be actually found. Some few persons too might be 
detected in having buried or concealed it ; which when 
discovered, would perhaps be almost as fatal to their 
countrymen, as the expedient of some unhappy Jews, 
who on the capture of Jerusalem by Titus swallowed 
their gold, was to their wretched fellow sufferers, 

Perhaps some of my readers may suppose, that the 
worst consequence of suspicion, or of an imputation 
: of contumacy, would be the having French soldiers 
quartered in their houses, in order to inforce discovery 
or compliance : a consequence certainly dreadful 
enough, especially to those who have wives or 
daughters: but unless we are treated better than 
Frenchmen are in like cases, torture or death 
may be probably superadded to that odious mode of 
exaction. 

The report that Toussaint was tortured to death, with 
a view to extort a discovery of the treasures which he 
was supposed to have hid in St. Domingo, and that his 
hapless wife shared the same fate, seems not to be 
improbable. By recent accounts from that island, it 
appears, that the suspicion of his having buiied wealth 
to a large amount, in a spot known only to himself, 
or to those in his most secret confidence, certainly did 
prevail with the French party. But if this crime be 



40 

doubtful, not so the murder, upon the same sordid 
principle, of M. Fedon, a white man, as well as a. 
Frenchman, whose case may be worth attention. 

General RochamDeau, finding that one of his last 
requisitions of money from the inhabitants of Cape 
Francois collectively, was not sufficiently productive, 
proceeded to assess individual merchants, at the sums 
of which he thought them to be still possessed ; and M. 
Fedon, being a merchant of the first eminence of that 
place, was required to pay down immediately as his 
quota, 5,000 dollars in specie. He truly pleaded inabi- 
lity to comply j and gave a reason somewhat similar to 
that which an unfortunate Englishman might allege, in 
the case which I wish to illustrate.— His whole funds, 
the goods in his warehouses excepted, had been invested 
in bills drawn upon the French government, for public 
services in that colony, under the authority of the 
general himself, or his predecessor; which bills had 
been returned protested. The same had been the 
fate of like paper to a large amount, in the 
hands of other merchants of the town ; by which 
means general distress from the want of a circulating 
medium, had been produced at that calamitous junc- 
ture. But though the general fact was indisputable, the 
particular excuse was not accepted. M. Fedon was put 
under arrest ; and with preremptory orders to the officer 
who took charge of him, to shoot him at three o'clock 
the same day, unless the money should be previously 
paid. 

It was in vain, that the unhappy merchant offer- 
ed his keys, to ascertain that he had no money in 
his coffers, and in vain that he offered to redeem bis 



41 

life with goods, or government bills, to any amount. 
Neither his offers nor complaints were regarded ; and 
the money not being brought forward by the appointed 
hour, he was led forth and actually shot on the public 
parade, pursuant to the General's order. His count- 
ing-house and warehouses were then taken possession of 
by the same tyrannic government, and, on a strict search, 
the cash found there amounted to about five dollars. 
This transaction, which through the loud complaints 
of a brother of the deceased, and of his mercantile 
friends, is quite notorious in the West Indies, and 
America, and which if I mistake not, was either men- 
tioned, or referred to, in the official dispatches of our 
naval officers, employed in the reduction of the Cape, 
has never been disavowed by Rochambeau ; and his 
impatience to go from this country to France on his 
parol, is a proof that he apprehended no punishment 
for so foul a murder, though the complaints of JVL 
Fedon the brother are known to have made their way 
to the Thuilleries. In fact, he threatened all the mer- 
chants at the Cape, French or American, with similar 
treatment, and would no doubt have followed up the 
dreadful precedent, but fortunately, the only subsequent 
assessment which he had time to make before his ex- 
pulsion from the island, did not exceed a sum, which, 
by making a common stock of all their resources , the 
merchants were able to pay. 

Were it not for the rigorous and unprecedented 
restraints imposed upon the press, in every country un- 
der Buonaparte's power or influence, there would proba- 
bly be no difficulty in citing many instances of similar 
oppression in Europe ; and even in France itself: but 



42 

the crimes of his interior government, are always per- 
petrated in silence, except when it becomes necessary 
to divulge them for some political purpose; and even 
then, care is taken to put every gloss upon them 
that state-craft can devise. Torture and death may 
very probably have been the secret fate of hundreds, 
who have been made the victims of this frightful des- 
potism, whether upon motives of policy, avarice, or 
revenge. 

Here, the rapacious spirit of the victors, excited by the 
expectation of inexhaustible spoil, and abetted by a long 
cherished lust of vengeance, would take its most direful 
range; and horrors would ensue,atthe report of which our 
fellow vassals on the continent might stand aghast, for- 
getting their own sufferings, in their pity of miserable 
England — Alas, those unhappy nations now bitterly 
repent their own supiiie&ess and folly, and regard us 
with envy, because we have still the power of escap- 
ing the torments, to which they are irretrievably doom- 
ed. How would they rejoice to be again as we now 
are, in a capacity to defend their liberties, though at 
the cost of every painful sacrifice, and every arduous 
effort of patriotism, which they fatally shrunk from 
before. 



Quam vellent aethere in ako, 



Nunc et pauperiem, et ciuros perferre laborer !" 
Let us cease in time to follow their example, 
that we may not be partakers of their plagues. 
Sect, j. Rigorous and merciless government that 
would certainly ensue. 
In England, various motives -would stimulate our 
new masters to more than their usual excesses. 



43 

Could we be fortunate enough, ^ven in tlie total 
surrender of public and individual property, to satisfy 
our spoilers that no more remained behind, still rage 
and revenge would claim their promised prey. Has 
not Napoleon solemnly declared, that the last of his 
combined enemies, shall expiate the offence of them 
all, and feel the full weight of his vengeance ? Has he 
not repeatedly held out allurements to the army des- 
tined to invade us, such as plainly imply engagements 
to give us up to the rapine and violence of his soldiers ? 
When was he known to be less cruel in act than in 
promise, and what ground has England to expect that 
his barbarous nature will relent in her case alone ? 

It is a peculiar characteristic of this inso'ent Con- 
queror, to treat every opposition to his purposes by 
foreign patriots, whether Sovereigns, Ministers, Ge- 
nerals, or private persons, as a reproach and a 
crimer Does an illustrious veteran retire mortally 
wounded from the field, with the wreck of an army 
which he had gallantly commanded, his loyalty and 
courage are made reasons for spoiling his domains, 
and excluding him from the tomb of his Ances- 
tors. Does a gallant youth of high birth and early 
reputation, nobly perish in battle, a martyr to the 
cause of his Country, Napoleon is too crafty to deny 
some praise to the Soldier, but the memory of the Pa- 
triot, is treated with the most vindictive censures, and 
insolent derision. His ebullitions of rage against that 
gallant officer Sir Sidney Smith, and his less impotent 
malice toward our unfortunate countryman Captain 
Wright, are specimens of the same spirit. 



44 

But wliy do I dwell on inferior instances, when de- 
posed Monarchs, nay their unhappy Queens, though 
the graces of beauty in distress, might aid the sympathy 
due to fallen royalty, are grossly insulted by this unfeel- 
ing man, for having dared to resist his arms. He, who 
punishes with death the publication of strictures on his 
own unworthy conduct, by men who owed him no 
allegiance, fills every newspaper with his coarse abuse 
of Sovereigns, who ought to be sufficiently protected by 
the respect due to long hereditary majesty, and to the 
grandeur of those thrones in which they lately sat ; but 
who would find with every liberal mind a still more secure 
protection, in pity for their unparalleled misfortunes, and 
their extreme distress. It would seem as if this auda* 
clous man arrogated to himself a natural right to be 
Lord of the human species ; regarding his usurpations 
only as the uniting possession to a title which belonged 
to him before, and which it was always treason 
to oppose. Certain it is, that patriotism, loyal- 
ty, and courage, which other conquerors have re- 
spected in their foes, are with him unpardonable 
crimes. 

What then, has England to expect from this 
inexorable victor? No nation that he has yet sub- 
dued, has opposed him so obstinately and so long; and 
I trust the measure of our offences in this respect, is yet 
very far from being full. Here, too, that species of 
hostility which he most dreads and hates, though he 
employs it without scruple against his enemies, has 
been peculiarly copious and galling. Instead of one 
Palm, he will here find a thousand, who have attempted 



45 

while there was yet time, to awaken their Country to 
a due sense of his crimes, and of our danger from his 
pestilent ambition. 

But it is needless perhaps to prove what he so freely 
and frequently avows. If there be any sincerity in 
his language, when there is no use in dissimulation, if 
either his Proclamations, his Bulletins, his Gazettes, 
his avowed, or unavowed, his deliberate, or hasty lan- 
guage, may be trusted, a deadly, acrimonious hatred to 
this Country, is the most settled and ardent feeling of 
his soul. He hates us as a people ; and would conquer 
us less even from ambition, than from anger and 
revenge. 

It is to be feared, besides, that partly from his unwea- 
ried misrepresentations, and partly perhaps from certain 
errors in our own conduct, he has made this sentiment 
very popular in France; and that the severest treatment 
which, as a conquered people, we could possibly receive, 
would expose him to no censure at home, much less 
be unacceptable to the enraged " Army of England/' 

It would not, after all, perhaps, be possible for Fo- 
reigners to govern us v/ithout a rod of iron, while the 
memory of our beloved liberties was recent, and custom 
had not ytt taught us to carry our chains with patience, 

A free people when conquered, and placed under an 
arbitrary government, must be kept in awe by a dis- 
cipline peculiarly strict and severe, till their high spirit 
shall be subdued ; like the wild native of the forest, 
which must be domesticated and tamed, by a severity 
of treatment, such as the spaniel never requires. 
. Above all, every open act of sedition or insubordi- 



AS 

nation among such a people, must be terribly chastised. 
An illustration of this may be found in our own treat- 
ment of the Koromantyn negroes, or natives of the 
Gold Coast ; as explained by Mr. Bryan Edwards, in 
his History of the West Indies. Among all the dif- 
ferent nations, and tribes of Africans, whom we reduce 
to a slavery unknown in their native land, by making 
them work for life under the whips of our drivers, the 
Koromantyns, from their martial spirit, and perhaps from 
a peculiar degree of civil liberty possessed by them in 
their native country, are found, by far, the hardest to 
break in, or to season, as it is called, to the duties of 
West India bondage. Other negroes quietly submit, 
though they die by great numbers in the process; 
but the Koromantyns, as we learn from Mr. Edwards, 
are so intolerant of the yoke, as often to escape Irom 
it by self-murder. 

They are naturally, therefore, very apt to resist the 
master's sovereign authority ; and sometimes form 
bold, though impotent conspiracies, or desperate re- 
volts ; and the consequence is, that the people of Ja* 
maica and other islands, have thought it right to make, 
in such case?, the most dreadful examples, roasting 
the insurgents to death by slow fires, or hanging them 
up alive in irons, to perish on a gibbet.* 

* Edwards's History of the West Indies, Vol. 2, Book 4. Chap. 
3. The following is an account of one case of this kind, of which 
he was an eye witness. " Of those who were clearly proved to- 
*' have been concerned in the murders committed at Ballard's 
*' Valley, one was condemned to be bu r nt > a&d the other two to 
«'* be hanged up alive in irons, and Left to perish in that dreadful 
" situation. 

. 7 



47 

That Frenchmen would follow precedents so hor-. 
rible as these, in punishing English insurgents, is per- 
haps more than we have reason to apprehend ; but the 
example proves, that dreadful severities would be 
used ; for we should certainly be, in comparison with 
other subjected nations, what the Koromantyns are, in 
comparison with other Africans, when carried into 
slavery by our merchants. The plea of necessity will 
be found here, as well as in Jamaica; for when a whole 
people is reduced to slavery, the more abhorrent to na- 
ture that condition is, the more fatal would be the 
effects of unsubdued resistance. 

" The wretch that was burnt, was made to sit on the ground, 
" and his body being chained to an iron stake, the fire was ap- 
" plied to his feet. Fie uttered not a groan, and baw his legs re- 
<( duced to ashes with the utmost firmness and composure. After 
f< which, one of his arms by some means getting loose, he snatch- 
tf ed a brand from the fire that was consuming him, and flung it in 
" the face of the executioner. 

" The two that were hung up alive, were indulged, at their 
" own request, with a hearty meal before they were suspended on 
" the gibbet, which was erected in the parade of the town of 
" Kingston. From that time until they expired, they never ut- 
" tered the least complaint, except only of cold in the night ; but 
" diverted themselves all day long in discourse with their country- 
" men, who were permitted, very improperly, to surround the 
" gibbet. On the seventh day, a notion prevailed among the 
" spectators, that one of them wished to communicate an important 
" secret to his master my near relation * who being in St. Mary's 
" parish, the commanding officer sent for me. I endeavoured by 
*' means of an interpreter to let him know that I was present, but 
11 I cculd net understand what he said in return. I remember 
ft that both he and his fellow-sufferer laughed immoderately at 
" something that occurred : I know not what. The next morning 
" one of them silently expiied, as did the other on the morning of" 
" the ninth day." (History of. West Indies, Vol. 2, Book 4. 
Chap. 3.) 



48 

A French government too. would naturally form ex- 
aggerated notions of the danger arising from any effer- 
vescence of popular discontent. 

Under the old regime in Paris, mobs were some- 
times raised in the Fauxbourgs, during a scarcity of 
bread ; when, instead of turning out the constables, 
reading a riot act, or even giving warning to disperse 
on the arrival of a military force, a troop of horse coolly 
rode in among them, and used the sabre, till the streets 
were cleared, at the expence of many lives. 

Since that period, the Parisian mobs have furnished 
some apology for their having been formerly controuled 
by such sanguinary means; and so far is Bonaparte from 
being disposed to brook the smallest demonstration of 
popular discontent, that he lately told the citizens of 
Berlin, their Sovereign had deserved to be dethroned, 
because he had not taken vengeance of them for break- 
ing the windows of an obnoxious minister. 

The British multitude would have a new lesson to 
learn therefore, or would be fatally misunderstood by 
their new masters. They would have to renounce, 
their hisses, their cat-calls, their Green men, and broad- 
faced orators, and must be careful how they even huz- 
zaed too loudly, should they still find any subject of 
applause. A tenth part of the tumult of the late 
Westminster election, would be enough to cover our 
pavements with the dead or wounded, and tinge our 
sewers with blood. 

The clubs, and numerous associations which now 
abound among our middle and lower classes, would 
also be liable to dangerous misconstructions. 

They would, no longer, indeed, have any of those 

5 



49 

interesting objects of union, the forming funds for 
mutual support in sickness, old age, or temporary loss 
of employment, the securing reversionary interests to 
surviving relatives, or any of the Various other useful 
purposes* to which our national taste for clubs has been 
made subservient. The wreck of our funds, would 
have ruined all these humble but beneficent establish- 
ments ; and the prudence of the Poor, disappointed in 
its present confidence, would no more be listen to the 
advice of the benevolent, so as to provide, by timely 
sacrifices, against the ordinary evils of their situation. 
But convivial, and other private motives, of union* 
might still draw men together in numbers alarming to 
the jealousy of a foreign Government ; the ignorance 
or malevolence of a spy might misrepresent their inten- 
tions ; and Englishmen, might soon find it dangerous 
to assemble beyond the limits of a family circle, though 
they should abstain from the consolation of lamenting 
together over their wrongs, and the sorrows of their 
Country. 

Our appetite for public news, and our propensity to 
political discussion, would give further occasion of fre- 
quent offence to the ruling powers, and often provoke 
the scourge of a rigid police, till we had learnt the hard 
lesson to forget the liberty of speech, as well as the 
freedom of the press. 

But it would be endless to anticipate all the instances, 
in which our present civil happiness^ would then be- 
come a source of pre-eminent misery. Every distin* 
guihing feature of our national character, would be 
offensive, or alarming to our new masters. An entire 
revolution in our manners, our feelings, and opinions* 

E 



50 

must be effected, before we could have such rest as the 
prostration of habitual servitude affords. Meantime 
if France has chastised other nations with whips, she 
would punish us with scorpions. 

Among the direct and comprehensive modes of 
oppression, to which rich and poor would be equally 
subjected, military conscriptions are of course to be 
reckoned. It cannot be imagined, that our Conqueror 
would treat us in this respect better than his other pro- 
vinces : and as compulsory service in foreign Countries, 
has been hitherto unknown to us, we should feel this 
s pecies of tyranny also, more keenly than our neighbours. 
The flower of the British youth, of all ranks, would 
soon be compelled to take up the musket, and to bleed 
and die, in distant climates, for the glory of the Great 
Nation. But this is a subject which I shall have occa- 
sion to reconsider, in one of its most striking relations ; 
I will not therefore enlarge upon it now. 

Sec. 9 Subversion of our religious liberties. 

Servants of God, sincere professors of the religion of 
Jesus, suppose not that in this rapid and imperfect 
sketch of the calamities with which French conquest 
would overwhelm our Country, I have forgotten, or 
mean to pass unnoticed, the grand interests of piety 
and virtue. 

On these, however, I need not much insist; for 
men who know how to value them, are not among the 
listless or careless observers of the scourge that is im- 
pending over us. Neither need they in general to be 
taught, how closely the cause of religion is associated 
with the liberty and independency of our country. 

The church of Christ, indeed, is " built upon a rock* 



61 

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," The 
word of omnipotence is pledged for its security ; and it 
may therefore defy the floods of civil revolution, and 
the conflagrations of conquest. But it pleases divine 
providence, to accomplish its purposes in human 
affairs., chiefly by human hands; and though true, 
religion has never been propagated by arms, yet the-. 
defensive courage of nations, has sometimes been em- 
ployed as the instrument of its protection. Witness 
the glorious reign of our own Elizabeth, and the co- 
temporary triumphs of religious liberty in Holland. 

We are not now menaced by a Philip the second ; 
but have a far more dangerous enemy ; and if any man 
suppose that he would long spare our religious, after 
trampling on our civil freedom, he must have examined 
very carelessly the character, and the policy of Buona- 
parte. 

That this man of blood, this open apostate from 
Christianity, is not what he has the impious grimace to 
affect to be, a truly penitent son of the Roman church, 
and zealous for her superstitions, I fully admit. Be- 
yond doubt he still is, what he was by education, a 
despiser of revealed religion in all its forms; and pro- 
bably, as such men commonly are, profoundly ignorant 
of its nature. 

But that as an engine of state, he sets a high 
value upon the Romish faith, has been evident 
from his conduct, ever since he first seized upon 
the sovereign power in France. He perceived that the 
influence of the Priesthood, and the authority of an 
infallible Church, might be made useful supporters of 
iiis throng ; since by their aid, he might remove from 

E 2 



02 

the minds of the pious, the horror they felt at lig 
usurpation ; and even transfer to himself, the benefit 
of those religious sanctions, which bound them to their 
lawful Sovereign. 

But though he could entirely govern the Pontiff, a$ 
well as the Bishops and Clergy ^ there was one great 
drawback on the immediate effect of this policy, in the 
general infidelity and ignorance of the people; for 
while Popery and Christianity had been subverted 
together, in the minds of multitudes who were once 
believers in the Gospel, few among that great part of 
the nation, which had been born or educated since the 
Revolution, had been at all instructed in religion of 
any kind. He had in great measure, therefore, to 
rebuild that engine of popish superstition, with which 
he was desirous to work. 

To this end he has long assiduously laboured ; and, 
among other means, has lately procured a new cate- 
chism to be drawn up, and established by the papal 
authority, for the use of the French church, in which 
all the old errors and superstitions of popery are 
strongly inculcated, and maintained, by such miserable 
sophistry, as is commonly used in their support. In 
this respect it is well adapted to the capacities of boys, 
and of adults in the lower ranks of society 3* and on 

* I have not room for any long specimen of its stile ; but the 
following extracts, of some of the propositions of faith, may 
suffice to prove that Napoleon's popery, has not at all degenerated 
from the standard of Leo the 10th. 

Q^ What is the sacrament of the Eucharist ? 

A. The Eucharist is a sacrament which contains, really and 
substantially, the body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, under the forms or appearance of bread and wine* 



the whole, a more ingenious composition for his purpose 
could not have been framed. With the solemn sane- 

Q. Why after having spoken to God, do you address the holy 
virgin ? 

A. That she may offer our prayers to God ; and that she may 
assist us by interceding with him for us, 

Q^ Is it good and useful to pray to the saints f 

A. It is very good, and very useful, to pray to them. 

Q^ Why do you add the satisfaction of the saints, to that of 
Jesus Christ ? 

A. Because of the goodness of God, who is willing, on the 
behalf of his most pious servants, to forgive the other. 

0. Why besides ? 

A. Because the satisfaction of the saints are united to that of 
Jesus Christ, whence they derive all their value. 

Q^ When did Jesus Christ, give the priests the power of remitting 
sin? 

A. When he said to them in the person of the Apostles, "receive 
the Holy Ghost ;" sins shall be forgiven to those to whom you 
shall remit them, and they shall be retained to those, to whom you 
retain them. 

Q. Do you believe only what is written ? 

A. I believe also what the Apostles have taught by word of 
mouth, and which has always been believed in the Catholic 
Church. 

Q. How do you call this doctrine ? 

A. I call it the unwritten word of God, or tradition. 

Q^ Why is the Catholic Church called Roman ? 

A. Because the Church established at Rome is the head, and the 
mother of all other Churches. 

Q^ Why do you ascribe this honour to it ? 

A. Because at Rome the chair of St. Peter was established, and 
of the Popes his successors. 

Q. What do you understand by the words, " I believe the 
Church ?" 

A. That the Church may always continue ; that all it teaches 
must be believed, and that to obtain eternal life, one must live and 
4ie in its bosom, 



M 

tion of the Pope's Bull, an archiepiscopal mandate, and 
an Imperial decree, in its front it is now carefully cir- 
culated, and assiduously taught, in every parish of the 
empire. 

If it were possible, on a contemplation of Buonaparte's 
general conduct and character, to question whether 
superstition, or policy, had kindled his zeal for restor- 
ing the faith, he has, by the spirit of this curious in- 
strument, removed all doubt on the subject. A gentle- 
man who has just published an English translation of 
it, justly remarks, that * the moral duties which it 
" specifies, are all on one side ; that what inferiors 
<s ewe to their superiors, is minutely detailed, and 
<c sternly enjoined ; but that what superiors owe to 
cc their inferiors, will be sought for in vain j for not a 
* c word on the subject is to be found," * 

Q^ Why must we believe all that the Church teaches? 

A. Because it is enlightened by the Holy Ghost. 

Q. Is the Catholic Church then infallible ? 

A. Yes ; and those who reject its decisions are heretics. 

Q. What does faith teach us concerning indulgences ? \ 

A. That the Church has received from Jesus Christ the power 
of granting them, and that the use of them is very salutary to 
Christians ? 

Q. Why are indulgences so salutary ? 

A. Because they are established to moderate the rigours of the, 
temporal pains due to sin. 

N. B. This is explained by another article to relate to Purgatory, 

Q^ Is it necessary to know precisely how this rigour is mo- 
derated. 

A. No : it is sufficient to believe that a good mother like the 
Church, give., nothing to her children, but what really serves %o 
lelieve them in this world and the next. 

* Introduction to this Catechism by Mr, JJqgue,* 






So much for the champion of equality, the demo 
cratical Buonaparte ! 

But then, he has carefully taught the duties, which 
both high and low, rich and poor, owe to his heaven- 
delegated self; and that too, as a branch of the Deca- 
logue ! ! ! The reader's curiosity will be still more strongly 
excited, when I add, that it is the fourth command- 
ment, which has happily provided buttresses to the 
throne of this usurper : but it is right to explain, that 
as Papists prudently omit the second, the fourth com- 
mandrnent, in their table, is that which enjoins us to 
honour our parents. 

Cardinal Caprara, the legate a latere at Paris, and 
Cardinal de Belloy, archbishop of Paris, and " Mem* 
her of the Legion of honour," have distinguished their 
pious ingenuity, by the following very clear exposi* 
tion, of what Protestants call the fifth commandment. 

Q. What are the duties of Christians in regard to 
the princes who govern them, and in particular 
what are our duties towards Napoleon the first our 
emperor t 

A. Christians owe to the princes who govern them, 
and, we owe in particular to Napoleon the first cur 
emperor, love, respect, obedience, military service 9 
and the tributes ordained for the preservation and the 
defence of the empire, and of his throne ; besides we 
owe him fervent prayers for his safety, and for the 
temporal and spiritual prosperity of the state. 

Q. Why are we bound to all these duties towards 
our emperor ? 

A. First, because God, who creates empires, and 



56 

who distributes them according to his will, in loading 
our emperor with favours, whether in peace or war, 
has established him our sovereign, has made him the 
minister of his power, and his image on earth. To 
honour and serve our emperor, is therefore to honour 
and serve God himself. 

Q. Are there not particular motives which ought to 
attach us more strongly to Napoleon the first, our 
emperor ? 

A. Yes : for he it is whom God has raised up, in 
difficult circumstances, to re-establish the public wor- 
ship of the holy religion of our fathers, and to be the pro- 
tector of it ; he has restored and preserved puolic order, 
by his profound and active wisdom; he defends the 
state, by his powerful arm; and is become the 
anointed of the lord, by the consecra- 
tion which he has received from the 
chief Pontiff, head of the universal 
Church. 

Q. What are we to think of those who should fail 
in their duty towards the emperor ? 

A. According to St. Paul the Apostle, they would 
resist the order established by God himself-, and 
would render themselves worthy of eternal damna- 
tion. 

Q. Are the duties by which we are bound towards 
our emperor, equally binding towards his legitimate 
successors. 

A. Yes, undoubtedly ; for we read in sacred scrip- 
ture, that God the Lord of heaven and earth, by a 
disposition of his supreme -will, and by his providence* 



57 

gives empires not only to a person in particular, but 
also to his family. * 

It would have been creditable to these worthy Car- 
dinals, if they could have left out the sixth command- 
ment, as well as the second ; for it certainly follows 
too close on the commentary, by which this man of 
blood, this destroyer of the house of his lawful and 
pious sovereign, is described as a delegate of heaven. 

There is such a combat between horror, and the 
sense of ridicule in the mind, upon reading these im- 
pious absurdities, that we cannot fully give way to 
either emotion ; and it therefore seems almost irreve- 
rent towards the sacred text, to quote them ; yet it is 
necessary that English protestants, and even pious 
papists, should see how religion is likely to be prosti- 
tuted and profaned, wherever this vile hypocrite is 
master. 

Infinitely more does he disparage our common faith, 

* The following curious apology is offered by the Cardinal 
archbishop, in his prefatory letter, for thus prostituting religion 
to sanction usurpation and treason. 

After intimating that the catechism, as far as relates to 
the doctrines of the Catholic church, is taken from the writings 
of the celebrated bishop of Meaux, (that zealous defender of po- 
pery, against the protestants, in the days of Louis 14th.) he adds, 
6t The duties of subjects towards the princes who govern themv 
'*' are more fully explained in it than they had ever been before ; 
" because the circumstances of the times in which we live, re- 
" semble not those of the times which have preceded them ; 
«« because christians have never feared when circumstances seemed 
*' to require it, to declare their sentiments concerning the powers 
'• established by God to rule the world." A most valorous 
intance, to be sure we here have, of this christian sincerity and 
freedom !!! 



5$ 

by acknowledging the Messiah at Paris, than he did by 
denying him in Egypt. 

This catechism, promulgated a few months ago, is 
but one of a train of concurrent measures, all directed to 
the same political end. Buonaparte has not only taken 
pains to restore the former superstitions, at the expense 
of sneers from his philosophical friends, but sacrifices 
much time, of which unhappily he is a great economist, 
in attending the celebration of mass, and the other 
rites of the popish communion. He even labours to 
restore, what after the public detection of the impos- 
tures of priestcraft in the days of the revolution, we 
might have supposed incapable of being renewed, — the 
popular reverence for relicks : for he has lately trans- 
port ed, with solemn pomp, a crown of thorns, pretended 
to be the identical one worn by our Saviour, from Italy 
to France. How indefatigable he wa.% in compelling 
the aged Pontiff to assist at his coronation, and anoint 
him with his holy chrism, the public cannot have for- 
got y and the catechism strongly teaches us the reason. 

Nor is his disregard to the temporal rights of the 
Pope, a trait at all inconsistent with the rest of this 
policy; for the most superstitious sovereigns of France, 
have not scrupled to adopt a similar conduct. It 
has been the ordinary tone of the Gallican church* 
even among its most pious and orthodox members* 
to limit the political power of their holy Father, how- 
ever fully they admitted his supremacy in questions of 
faith. 

In short, Napoleon has been steadily aiming at 
acquiring, in the eyes of the vulgar, the character 
of a good catholic, and sincere son of the church. 



S9 

* But Napoleon," it may be objected, " has not 
* yet shewn himself a persecutor of the reformed 
" churches. " — Certainly not, — it would have been too 
gross and sudden an apostacy from his philosophical 
creed, not utterly to disgust and outrage all those men 
of science, whom it was his policy and vanity to attach 
to him ; and what was more dangerous, even the officers 
of his army. 

Some of the latter, were said openly to have express- 
ed, at the first, their contempt tor those religious so- 
lemnities which they saw the chief Consul attending; 
and educated as they for the most part were, it may 
probably be some time, before the spirit of open and 
contemptuous scepticism will be sufficiently subdued in 
the army, to make persecution entirely convenient. 

But already the conceited French infidels are recon- 
ciled to the policy of cheating the ignorant populace 
with the errors to which they are foolishly prone, and re- 
building the fabric of superstition, for the sake of its civil 
effects. Already, as may be perceived by Napoleon's Te 
Deums, his high masses, and canting professions of 
piety, in his bulletins or general orders, the politic hypo^ 
crisy which he practises is beginning to be popular in the 
army. It will be but one, and an easy step more, to 
profess himself the restorer of the true Catholic faith, 
and to obtain that glory, to which Charles the Fifth, 
Philip the Second, and Louis the Fourteenth, vainly 
in the plenitude of their greatness aspired, by the utter 
extirpation of schism and heresy in the Christian 
church. 

It is quite unnecessary to suppose, as a motive for 
such an enterprise in the Emperor's mind, any real 



60 

preference of the Romish faith, in opposition to the 
reformed religions ; and yet it is highly probable that 
such a predilection exists. It is a strikingly uniform 
characteristic of the zealous enemies of revelation, even 
among those who have laboured most to discredit it, in 
protestant countries, that they have a pre-eminent aver- 
sion to those forms of faith, which are the least assailable 
by the shafts of wit on the score of folly and superstition. 

An attentive reader, of Hume or Gibbon, will per- 
ceive that they have much more indulgence for the 
grossest errors and abuses of popery, than for the 
rational faith of a sincere protestant Christian. If the 
former are ever mentioned by them in strong terms, 
or depicted in high colouiung, it is only for the sake 
of insidiously confounding them with the latter; and 
thereby holding up all belief in revelation, to ridicule or 
abhorrence. Hume, will be found much more sparing 
than other historians, of his censures on the persecu- 
ting bigots of the Romish church, in the unhappy days 
of Mary; and equally distinguished by his severity 
against the excesses of the reformers, in the following 
reigns ; and on the whole, he is evidently partial to 
popery, though this characteristic may escape the 
notice of such readers as take a much higher interest in 
constitutional, than theological discussions. His malice 
against religious principle in general, is conveniently 
disguised, under a just severity towards those political 
errors, with which, in that age, it was too often asso- 
ciated. 

As to Gibbon, he manifested, both in literary, anc} 
private character, the affinity between Romish supersti- 
tion, and philosophical scepticism. He was a convert 



61 

to Popery, before he became an unbeliever ; and 
though the questions between protestant and catholic, 
did not lie in his historical path, it is not difficult to 
perceive, that he, like Hume, is jealous of all mediums 
between his own philosophy, and a blind devotion to 
the tenets of an infallible church. Even in regard to 
questions in which the generality of Protestants and 
Roman Catholics are on the same side, against sects 
whom they both condemn for attempting a compromise 
between natural and revealed religion, the partialities 
of Gibbon are on the opposite side to those on which 
we might have expected to find them. If he prefers 
Julian to Constantine, he prefers also the Athanasians 
to the Arians ; and to none of his controversial oppo- 
nents was he more bitter and contemptuous, than to 
the Socinian and philosophical Priestly. 

A living writer, of the same school, has laboured 
openly to defend against the opinions of his protestant 
countrymen, both the practice of auricular confession, 
and masses for the dead. 

Nor is there in all this, any thing strange or uncom- 
mon. The Deist is naturally indignant at those 
Christians, who would presume to rival him in the 
field of reason, and to exercise as freely as himself the 
right of private judgment, while they nevertheless 
admit the truth and divine authority of the Scriptures. 
He regards them as hostile borderers; and hates them, 
because he dreads them, more than the blind bigots of 
a gross superstition. 

For these and other reasons, it would be childish to 
imagine, that there is any security in the irreligion of 



6i 

Buonaparte, against his denying liberty of conscience ttf 
This subjects, when political expediency shall seem to 
him to demand, or not to forbid, such oppression* 
Indeed, it seems to me, that a purpose of enforcing by 
his power a uniformity of faith, and submission to the 
Church of Rome, throughout his dominions, is, either 
by inadvertency or design > pretty plainly intimated, in 
the solemn instruments prefixed to his new catechism. 
But let the reader judge for himself. 

€t The constant prayer of the Church, dearly beloved 
<c brethren is, that the doctrine of Christy being tssen- 
€i tially one, may be uniformly taught ; and that 
<c Christians having the same sentiments and the 
u same belief may every where use the same lan» 
c< g ua g e * I n pursuance of this object, and in obe- 
c< dience to a previous law, conformable to the desire 
u of the Church, a catechism has been composed de- 
u signed to be the only one used in all the Churches of 
H the French Empire." 

Again — H. The Prince under whose government we 
" live, though raised by Providence to the pinnacle of 
" human power, glories to acknowledge that priests, 
" and not emperors, are to preach the doctrines of the 
" holy Church. He unites ivith one of his illustrious 
" predecessors, who sat on the throne of France, in 
" saying, that if the duty of bishops is to make known 
" with freedom the truth which they have received 
" from Jesus Christ, that of the prince is to hear it 
" from them founded on the scriptures, and to enforce 
" it with all his might" 

So runs the pastoral letter or mandate of Cardinal 



€3 

Belloy. In the Imperial decree that follows, the cate- 
chism is directed to be used " in all the Catholic 
" churches of the empire, ,, a change of phrase, which 
seems to manifest that the generality of the former 
instrument, as descriptive of the Emperor's design, had 
not passed unnoticed. Why then was it not altered 9 
unless for the sake of intimating to zealous Catholics, 
that the ulterior purpose was wider than the immediate 
practice ? But the allusion to that persecuting bigot, 
Louis 14th, and the emphatic words that follow, seem 
to mark the same intention more clearly. 

Whether this construction be admitted or not, the 
immediate practical moderation of a Government 
which, in the nineteenth century, so anxiously incul- 
cates submission to the Church of Rome as essential to 
salvation, and openly brands as heretics all who deny 
its infallibility, is certainly very suspicious. Napoleon, 
it is true, for the present, tolerates the reformed re- 
ligion in Holland, and even in France 5 but did not 
Charles the fifth, do the same in Germany, till he was 
able conveniently to throw off the mask ? Nay, did not 
Louis the fourteenth, profess himself the protector of 
the protestant states of that country, when it suited 
the views of his ambition ? Let us look forward then 
to a state of things, alas! too nearly accomplished, 
when Europe will have no more power of resistance to 
this imperious man. Let us suppose hini master of 
England, as well as of the Continent; and ask ourselves 
what will then be the barrier of religious freedom, in 
this once fortunate Island. 

He has found the utility of that alliance between 
the throne and the altar, against which, in com- 



64 

mon with his Jacobin friends, he once so loudly 
inveighed. But to what altar, will he look for support ? 
Not surely to one on which he cannot sacrifice, and 
the votaries of which will never repair to his own. He 
will, on the contrary, feel like most of his predecessors 
in the career of conquest, that an opposition in faith, 
may one day lead to a dismemberment of empire; and 
that unity in Church-government, is^a necessary but- 
tress to the stupendous fabrick of usurpation which he 
has raised. Such a unity can only be found, in restoring 
the universal supremacy of the See of Rome ; and to 
him, the measure would be more inviting by far, than 
it ever was to any former son of the Church, however 
powerful ; since he can have no fear that the Holy Father 
will ever dare to oppose his will. The keys of heaven 
on the contrary, will be turned at his command ; and 
enable him to secure with a triple bolt the fetters that 
his arms have imposed. Without arrogating to him- 
self that divine legation as a teacher, which he already 
impiously assumes as a subverter of thrones, he might 
add like the Caliphs, the power of a spiritual, to that 
of his temporal empire. 

We may add to these considerations, that Buona- 
parte, in preserving the religious liberties of Great Bri- 
tain, would have to maintain, not only a protestant 
episcopal Church, but the Presbyterian establishment 
of Scotland, the constitution of which would present 
to him the alarming image of popular and representa- 
tive Government ; and also to tolerate those numerous 
sects of dissenters, whose interior organization and 
discipline, wear still more of a democratical aspect : 
nor would his alarm be lessened, by the discovery that 



65 

Our protestant dissenters have at all times been deter- 
mined enemies to arbitrary power. 

Happily indeed, this has long ceased to be a distinc- 
tion between Englishmen ; and since a well defined free- 
dom has limited the prerogative of our Kings, the throne 
has not had more faithful supporters, than have been, 
found among dissenters from the established Church. 
In hatred to a foreign yoke,, Britons of ail religious 
denominations would be equally ardent ; but the 
tyrant might find in our civil history, and in the 
political prejudices against sectaries, which still linger 
among us, as well as in the habits of some very po- 
pular religious societies, peculiar grounds of distrust. 

His dread of such sectarian associations however, 
would not be fatal to dissenters alone. If unwilling to 
preserve our present system of toleration to its full ex- 
tent, the sure alternative would be the requiring an en- 
tire uniformity of faith and discipline. In him, as a Papist, 
it would be the only consistent course ; and besides, 
were the work of persecution once begun, resistance 
would soon push him into extremes against all who 
presumed to lay claim to liberty of conscience. The 
line of demarcation would not easily be drawn, between 
this, and that* heretical communion. 

Buonaparte, it may further be added, would probably 
be led by his temper, as well as his policy, to put down 
all religious dissent from the creed which he deigns to 
profess. His imperious pride, and insatiable appetite for 
domination, would after theconques^ of England, soon 
find no change of the high-flavoured food to which they 
have been used, but in subduing the consciences of 
mankind, 

F 



66 

The religious then, of every denomination among us 
have peculiar cause to tremble at the idea of our be* 
coming a province of France. The terrible scenes 
which were exhibited there, upon the revocation of the 
edict of Nantz, might soon be reacted in England. 
Dungeons and tortures might be employed to subdue 
the courage of the faithful, and the reverend Bishops 
and Pastors of our Church, again be led out to a fiery 
trial inSmithfield. 

Sect ii. Dreadful corruption of morals. 

If there be men, who without any concern for religion, 
are really anxious about the interests of virtue, let them 
also, shudder at this prospect. 

The utter dissolution of morals in France, is a fact 
too fully attested to be disbelieved, even by those who 
do not perceive in it a necessary consequence of general 
and open fidelity. Vice, in her most licentious forms, 
abounds especially amongst the French military,' who 
would of course be our principal guests. How indeed 
could it be otherwise, among officers and soldiers edu- 
cated like those who now serve in the armies of 
France ? 

Sixteen or seventeen years have now elapsed since the 
foundations of religion and morality where wholly 
broken up in that Country ; and but a very small part 
of its soldiers, can count twice as many years from their 
cradle ; while a vast majority of them, are too young 
to remember any other than the present licen- 
tious times. Their ethics can have been acquired 
only in the Jacobin schools -, or in the camp. As 
pupils of experience also, their lessons have been of the 
worst sort. They have seen nothing but the crimes 



07 

and disorders of revolution at home; nothing but 
scenes of blood and rapacity abroad. 

Trul}'' frightful is the thought, of having such men 
spread over every district of our yet happy island, 
and executing among us all the functions of an in- 
terior police : yet such would certainly be our lot. 
They would not only keep guard in our cities, but be 
quartered in our country towns and villages, where few 
decent houses would escape the pollution of a pri- 
vate soldier or two, as its constant billetted guests ; 
except perhaps the mansions of the village squires, or 
the chief inhabitants of the towns, which might have 
thQ honour of receiving the officers. 

The latter, would of course enter into every circle of 
public and private society, and give the lead wherever 
they appeared ; not only by the means of wealth and 
splendour, of which they would be the chief or sole 
possessors, and by the natural confidence of their 
characters; but by the aid of that timid and servile 
deference which the terror of their power would inspire. 
Much would be to be dreaded from the direct 
effects of their libertinism ; but still more fro-m their 
pestilent example. We should soon become as vicious 
as themselves ; or rather more so. Like the poor en- 
slaved Africans in our colonies, we should imitate the 
immoralities of our masters, and add to them the 
vices of servility. 

It would soon be in vain to search for those modest 
and lovely young women, who now captivate our 
youths tot those virtuous matrons, who are the blessings 
or our manhood and our age; or for those moral feelings 
in either sex, which are the guards of domestic honour, 

F 2 



68 

purity and happiness. That probity of character also, 
which hasdistinguished the middle ranksof Englishmen, 
in commercial and private life, that abhorrence of false- 
hood and fraud, in our intercourse with our equals, that 
disdain of servility, in our demeanour towards the 
great, that generosity, which, with one strange and sad 
exception, gives to the oppressed an advocate in every 
British bosom, would soon be found no more. Themext 
generation, if not the present, would be aWfrenckiJied, 
and debased, even below the vile standard of our op- 
pressors. Yes, Englishmen ! your children would be- 
come in morals, as well as in allegiance, Frenchmen ( 
I can say to you nothing worse. 



When I contemplate all these sure and tremendous 
consequences of a conquest by France — the exchange 
©f the best of sovereigns, for the worst of tyrants; of 
the happiest constitution that ever blessed the social 
union of mankind, tor a rapacious military despotism; 
of the purest administration of justice upon earth, for 
barefaced corruption, unbridled violence, and oppres- 
sion in its foulest forms ; of unrivalled wealth and pros- 
perity, for unparalleled misery and ruin; — when I re- 
flect on the direful means, by which this conquest must 
be accomplished, and the still more dreadful means by 
which it must be maintained - r and when I add to this 
black catalogue, the horrors of religious persecution, 
and that general corruption of morals, which would 
probably ensue;"! stand aghast at the frightful prospect. 



'69 

c< Who shall live," I could exclaim in the words of 
scripture, " when God doeth this tiling ?" 

It reminds me of the vengeance denounced by pro- 
phecy against the great commercial city, the Babylon 
that is yet to be destroyed. " Babylon the great, is 
** fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of de- 
iC vils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage 
t% of every unclean bird. How much she hath glo- 
" rifted herself, and lived deliciously, so much tor- 
(i ment and sorrow gi\-e her: for she saith in her 
" heart, I sit a Queen, and am no widow, and shall 
" see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in 
" one day j death and mourning, and famine. And 
" the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn 
u over her, for no man huyeth their merchandize any 
<c more. The merchandize of gold, and silver, and 
" precious stones, and of pearls, and of fine Jinen, 
" and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyme 
?* wood, and all manner of vessels of most precious 
" wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and 
" cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frank- 
" incence, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and 
" wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and cha- 
" riots, and slaves, and souls of men, and the fruits 
" which thy soul lusted after, are departed from thee; 
" and all things which were dainty and goodly, are 
" departed from thee ; and thou shaft find them no 
" more at all The merchants of these things, which 
" were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the 
" fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and say- 
" ing, alas ! alas ! that great city, that was clothed in 
M fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with 



70 

u gold, and precious stones, and pearls. For in ons 
c * hour, so great riches is come to nought. And 
** every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and 
* l sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, 
" arid cried when they saw the smoke of the burning, 
" saying what city is like unto this great city ? And 
u they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping 
" and wailing, and saying, alas ! alas ! that great city, 
•' wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea, 
" by reason of her costliness ; for in one hour is she 
" made desolate.*" 

* See the 1 8th chapter of the Revelations — The author, in thus 
availing himself of the forcible and awful language of inspiration, 
to express ideas which his mind in vain labours to convey, trusts 
that he shall not be accused of presumptuously interpreting this 
prophecy, 2s predictive of the fate of his Country. He holds it 
vain, if not irrevereat, to attempt prospective interpretations of 
that kind ; and feels his own extreme incompetency to offer, even 
conjectures, on such a difficult subject. — Besides, this prophecy, is 
by mo^, if not all, the ablcs* prctestant commentators, supposed 
to relate to the destruction of Papal Rome. 



PART II. 



Sect. i. Of the Means by which these Dangers may 
be averted. 

THESE painful anticipations would be worse than 
useless, if the sad fate which seems to be impending 
over the country, were such as no possible efforts could 
prevent. 

I see not the wisdom of propagating alarm without 
any ulterior object ; or for the sake merely of discredit- 
ing the measures of a former government. But if the 
public be, as I conceive it in general is, unconscious 
of the true extent, and dreadful character, of those cala- 
mities with which we are menaced : and if the most 
arduous exertions, animated by a spirit of unbounded 
devotion to the cause of our country, can alone pre- 
serve us from destruction ; a more important service 
to the state cannot be rendered, than to awaken the 
people to their danger. 

By a fatality, which seems like the mysterious work 
of a chastising Providence, the nations successively 
subdued by France, have had no adequate conceptions 
of the sad destiny which awaited them, till they have 
actually felt the yoke. Some of them have wilfully 
assisted her in forging their own chains ; and all have 






been wanting in that resolution and ardour, with which 
so dreadful a foe ought to have been resisted. Their 
governments, perhaps, may have been chiefly in fault, 
but, except in the useless struggles of the brave Ca- 
labrians and Tyrolese, we have no where seen a popular 
energy equal to the occasion ; but rather a torpor and 
indifference hard to be explained. 

It would seem as if their and our deadly enemy 
possessed, like the rattlesnake, whose destructive ma- 
lignity and contortive progress he imitates, the power of 
fascination. This pernicious reptile, being encumbered 
with a rattle, which, like the despotism of Napoleon, 
gives a wholesome alarm to all around him, would 
rarely be able to destroy the animals whp are his ordina-? 
ry victims, if it were not for a strange stupifying influx 
ence which he is able to exert upon them, as soon as his 
fiery eyes have arrested theirs, and marked them for de- 
struction. From that moment, instead of frustrating, 
they favour, his murderous purpose. Far from exerting 
their sure powers of resistance or escape, they await mo- 
tionless his approach ; or even by an unconscious suicide, 
rush upon his fatal fangs. The horrible tortures which 
ensue, can alone awaken them from the charm. Tra- 
vellers confidently assure us, that not only the squirrel, 
the racoon, and still larger animals, but even man him- 
self, is the victim of this strange fascination. It is added, 
that birds on the wing, are arrested in their flight, the 
moment their eye meets that of the rattlesnake on the 
earth below them ; and that renouncing the security of 
an element in which this deadly enemy cannot reach 
them, they drop from the air into his voracious jaws. 
Of this last particular I should. I own, be incredulous^ 



but for the recollection that there are Englishmen, 
who would, by making peace at this juncture, lay open 
the sea to France. 

If governments have been elsewhere blameable, for 
not informing the mind, and exciting in due time, 
the active courage of the people, the prodigy is not 
lessened, but only altered in its form. It is true, that 
under despotic governments, the popular spirit can 
have few spontaneous movements; but kings and mi- 
nisters, at least, have been fascinated by Bonaparte ; 
and their superior means of information, add greatly to 
the wonder. 

In England, however, the government and the people 
mutually and strongly act upon each other. It is jus!: 
therefore to say, that a want of energy in preparing for 
our defence, must be the fault of both ; and with the - 
voice of an independent, but loyal Englishman, I will 
endeavour to point out duties which each has hitherto 
neglected. 

But before I proceed to suggest the public measures, 
which appear to me essential to the salvation of the 
country, let me briefly, but firmly, protest against one, 
which would greatly aggravate its dangers. 

Sect. 2. Ought zve to make Peace with France? 

We lately endeavoured to find a palliation for the 
evils of the times, by an immediate termination of the 
war; and happy is it for England, perhaps, that the ex^ 
periment did not succeed. 

Events have since occurred, which seem to remove 
all danger of the same attempt being speedily resumed; 
and yet there are persons, who, by a strange inversion 
of what appears to me right reasoning, regard the ruin 



74 

of the Continent, and the extreme aggrandizement of 
France, as arguments for a maritime peace. It may not 
be wholly useless, therefore, to condemn the late abortive 
attempt ; though I trust, that Auerstadt, and the fall 
of Prussia, have now evinced the danger of a line of 
policy, which Austerlitz, and the peace of Presburgb, 
might have sufficed to preclude. 

To censure a great political measure of the present 
able and enlightened cabinet, is perhaps presumptuous 
in a private individual; and is a work which I perform 
with regret. I am conscious that the awful considerations 
which may weigh in the choice between a pacific or war- 
like system, cannot be perfectly known to the public at 
large ; and the distinguished talents now united in 
the ministry, certainly challenge the strongest general 
confidence in the wisdom of our counsels. Yet I 
dare not suppress, at this awful conjuncture, a very 
sincere, though perhaps erroneous opinion, that a peace 
with France, if accomplished by the late negociations, 
would have been fatal to the security of the Country. 

Unfortunately, from the nature of our Constitution, 
Ministers are not always at liberty to follow that path 
of policy which they may deem the best in itself 
Interior difficulties, arising from Parliamentary opposi- 
tion, or from the popular voice, may drive them out of 
that course which they would otherwise think it pru- 
dent to steer j and in this instance, it seems to have 
been imagined, that the public voice began to declare 
tor Peace. 

At the same time, I find it difficult to conjecture 
whence that impression arose ; unless from a natural 
source of mistake to which great men, whether in or 



75 

out of office, are unavoidably exposed. There is no- 
thing on which it is safer to hazard an opinion in pri- 
vate, than the inclination of the popular voice; and a 
statesman is not likely to hear any information, hostile 
to opinions, which are understood to be his own. In 
this case it certainly was very generally understood that 
the new administration, especially Mr. Fox, and his 
friends, were decidedly bent upon peace. 

But whatever might be the source of this impression, 
I am confidently of opinion that it was erroneous ; 
that the nation at large was never more general- 
ly disposed for the prosecution of war; and that the 
burst of joy with which the rupture of the late negoci* 
ation was received at the Exchange, would have been 
echoed from the remctest parts of the kingdom, if its 
sound, and its occasion, couid have been heard so far. 
Not that the people love, or do not deplore the war; but 
that they wisely despair of any real or abiding peace j, 
and dread the consequences of any treaty that can be 
made with France at this period. 

That there was not more reason to apprehend oposi- 
tion t6 a determined war system in parliament, I dare 
not affirm ; and feeling how much party spirit is now 
to be deprecated, I venture to censure the negociation 
the more freely, because if it was wrong to negociate with, 
France, it was an error which the present opposition 
does not, and cannnot arraign. The leading members 
of that body, some of whom well deserve the esteem of 
their country, had not indeed expressly declared for a 
pacific system j but language was held by them which 
plainly implied an opinion, that peace might not impro- 



76 

pevly be negociated for at that disastrous sra, on what 
they called " honourable terms.'' 

The true objections to the measure then,' as well 
as at the present more awful crisis, apply to the una- 
voidable nature and effects of any treaty that could be 
proposed ; not to its particular terms ; yet we heard of 
" agood peace," and "an honourable peace*"' as proper 
to be treated for with France, For my. part, if the pos- 
sibility of a safe Peace can be shewn, I will heartily ad- 
mit, be its articles what they may, that it is good for my 
country in these evil times ; and not dishonourable to 
her, but glorious to those who may make it. But 
while no such peace is to be hoped for, I would not 
treat ; because I would not lead the people of England 
into the dangerous error of supposing, that peace with 
France, in her present attitude, is compatible with their 
safety ; nor would I lead the people of Europe, and 
America, to believe that England is of that opinion. 

The great and insuperable objections to a treaty of 
peace with Buonaparte in the existing state of Europe, 
are first, that it will enable him to prepare new means for 
our destruction ; secondly, that it cannot abate his in- 
clination to use them; and thirdly, that it can bring 
u> no pledge or security whatever against his pursuing 
the most hostile and treacherous conduct. 

We have heard much lately of the uti possidetis^ 
but this basis, from the offer of which the enemy rece- 
ded in respect of the shore, he cannot be expected to 
extend to the sea. If he would apply it to the relative 
situations of the British and French navies, allowing us 
to keep the exclusive possession of the ocean, and en-, 
gaging neither to increase his marine, nor send his fleets 



out of port, nor prepare seamen to man them hereafter* 
the true spirit of the utl possidetis might apply to the 
present new and extraordinary case ; in which, as Napo- 
leon himself admits, the dominion of the sea is in our 
possession ; and is an advantage which forms our only 
counterpoise to his tremendous continental power. 
But since this application of the principle cannot be 
hoped for or proposed, the specious basis for which wer 
so eagerly contended, would in truth be fallacious and 
unequal. It would leave to France all her present 
means of annoyance ; and soon deprive us of that ex- 
treme ascendancy at sea, which is our chief mean of 
defence. It is like the equality of proposing to a man 
that has a shorter sword than his enemy, that each 
shall keep his pistols, provided he will come out of the 
house in which he has taken shelter, or let the door be 
open to both. 

Napoleon, however, thought even this bad bargain 
too good for us, when he found us ready to accept it i 
or rather, as we were disposed to leave him possessed of 
every usurpation in Europe, he postponed the agree- 
ment, till he should have usurped a still larger share 
©f the Continent ; and thrown down every remaining 
outwork by which we might hope to be in any 
degree covered, when no longer irresistible on the ocean,, 
1 doubt not, that when his continental enemies shall 
have been brought to acquiescence in a new manufac- 
tory of kingdoms, out of the ruins of their power, he- 
will again offer to us the uii possidetis* 

In yielding to us the sovereignty of new colonies 
and settlements beyond the Atlantic, or in the extre- 
mity of Africa, he well knows that he shall give us no 

6 



73 

means of future security against his arms ; but on the 
contrary, increase those fatal drains which exhaust our 
defensive energies. What can a man who wishes to 
conquer England, desire better, than to give her new 
colonies to garrison, in the sickly swamps of Guiana ; 
and new civil and military establishments to maintain, 
at the Cape of Good Hope? He professes indeed to 
place a great value on colonies ; and perhaps, consider- 
ing the situation of France, might reasonably do so, 
but new distant territory to Great Britain, is like new 
projections from the upper floors of a building which 
already overhangs its base. 

If, however, Buonaparte were short sighted enough 
not to perceive that we should be enfeebled by such 
acquisitions, he knows at least that the free use of the 
sea, is worth to him a hundred such colonial cessions, 
as the uti possidetis would give us. We should in 
effect pay him a large compensation for the spoils of 
his allies in the colonies ; while he would retain the 
enormous spoils of our allies in Europe, without pay- 
ing for them anv compensation at all. I cannot think, 
therefore that he has receded from this offered basis, 
exceot for a short interval, and with a view to finish his 
usurpations on the continent, before he accepts our 
comprehensive sanction of them in a new treaty of 
peace. 

Supposing this basis unsafe for us, what other it may 
be asked, would be less so ? I answer, what in the 
existing posture of affairs is. diametrically opposite, the 
stales quo ante helium, for ourselves and our allies. 

But this, it may be exclaimed, it would be prepos- 
terous to expect at present from France. I admit it 4 

7 



79 

and therefore it would be preposterous to expect at 
present a peace safe for Great Britain The impossibi- 
lity consists in this, that France will not relinquish 
her new possessions on the continent ; and that there- 
fore Great Britain cannot safely relinquish her undivided 
possession of the sea. We cannot do so, not only be- 
cause we should, by opening the sea to our enemy, 
enable him soon to become a formidable maritime pow- 
er, but because his usurped Empire on shore, would 
become far more terrible and irresistible than it is, were 
its commercial communications restored. We dare 
not give him back his navigation, and let him keep all 
his new territory too. 

These principles, in any day but the present, would 
have needed no demonstration. If we can safely make 
peace with France in her present most alarming atti- 
tude, we have been fighting since J 792, and even in 
all our wars since the treaty of Ryswick, not only with- 
out necessity, but upon the most irrational and ex- 
travagant views that ever governed the policy of a 
nation. 

To the argument : " How can we now hope to redeem 
" the continent by war ?" — I answer, its redemption by 
peace, is at least equally hopeless. Let us therefore, if 
the continent be indeed irrecoverably lost, look well to 
what remains, — to the last hope of Europe, as well as 
our own nearest interest, the safety of the British Islands. 
There was a time perhaps, when it might have been 
more prudent to open the sea to France, leaving her in a 
state of great continental aggrandizement, than to. 
risque her pushing her conquests still further, if that, 
could have been prevented by any pacific conventions 



that we had power to make* for ourselves and oilt 
allies ; but if there was ever a proper season for such 
policy, it plainly exists no longer ; and this, not only 
because our enemy has shewn that no confidence can be 
placed in any treaty which opposes his thirst of univer- 
sal empire ; but because it may now fairly be doubted, 
whether any further increase of his dominions, would 
really add to his power. 

For my. own part, however singular the opinion may 
seem, I should have less apprehension of dinger from 
the arms of Napoleon, if the. remaining territories of 
Prussia, and Austria, and even the immense domains of 
Russia, and Turkey, were added to his conquests, than 
I feel at the present moment. At sea, the acquisition 
of every bottom still friendly to this country, would 
not now enable him to cope with us ; and on shore, he 
has power enough already for our destruction, when 
it can be brought into action against us. The mo- 
mentum of the vast machine, on its present scale, 
is more than we can hope finally to resist : but 
every enlargement of its dimensions, and multiplier* 
tion of its intricate movements, increases its tenden* 
cies to interior derangement ;" and therefore, without 
adding to our immediate peril, improves our chance of 
escape. Buonaparte has hitherto been so astonishingly 
prudent, or fortunate, that we naturally begin to doubt 
whether there be any thing too difficult for him to ac* 
cornplish i but his power is already composed of so 
many discordant elements, that their cohesion is truly 
wonderful : and as be proceeds, he is gaming at double 
or quits. Even the large armies, which he has to sta- 



81 

tion in so many conquered countries, will soon be very 
difficult to govern : They, or their generals, will proba - 
bly recollect, that the Roman legions bestowed the pur- 
ple, as well as kept the provinces in subjection ; and 
revolutions in this extraordinary age, move with a ce- 
lerity of which history has no example. 

But if it be still thought that we have cause to dread 
the further extension of French Empire on the Continent, 
it is a danger against which Peace can furnish no degree 
of security. Napoleon will not treat our mediation or 
remonstrances now, with more deference than he did 
after the treaty of Amiens. 

I conclude, therefore, that in relaxing by a Peace, 
that naval and commercial embargo to which the enemy 
is now subjected by our fleets, and enabling him there- 
by to replenish his treasury, and restore his marine, 
we should incur very formidable new dangers, without 
at all diminishing the old. We should not check, but 
accelerate, the growth of his tremendous power on the 
Continent ; while we should give him the opportunity 
of building that bridge for it to the British Islands, 
which is now happily wanting. 

If Peace would not diminish the power of Napoleon 
to prepare means for the conquest of England, still less 
would it remove his present hostility to our indepen- 
dence and freedom. 

In truth, it is impossible, that he should ever cease 
to regard our subjugation as the first and most necessary 
object of his policy. His throne cannot be stable, while 
civil liberty remains unsubverted in any part of Europe ; 
and though freedom is every where the object of his 
hatred and dread, yet it is particularly terrible to him 

G 



8% 

Here. With such a neighbour as the British Constiti^ 
tion, he knows that his military despotism can never 
cea c :e to be invidious and odious in France. 

Equally impossible is it, that new subjects of conten- 
tion, should not soon and often arise. Already he justly 
foresees one of them, which he is by no means prepared 
to tolerate, in the freedom of our press; and therefore 
has modestly proposed its abolition by Act of Parlia- 
ment, as essential even to that temporary peace, which 
he is willing, for his own purposes, to accord to us. If 
be did not press that demand as an indispensible condi- 
tion of the Treaty lately projected, it only proves the 
more clearly, that he either was in sincere in negoci- 
ating for a Peace, or meant to make use of it as a mere 
stratagem the better to insure our destruction. 

But supposing that he really means to live in peace 
with a country, whose news-writefs shall dare to di- 
vulge and arraign his crimes, it is an intention to which 
he would be incapable of adhering. He is not less 
proud or irascible now, than before he had assumed the 
title of Emperor, or won the battle of Austerlitz; and yet 
during the last peace, he resented with great indigna- 
tion the censures of our press. 

What then is to be done ? He disdained in fche case 
of M. Peltier the satisfaction of a prosecution at law^ 
nor would he consent to distinguish between strictures- 
such as our courts might deem libellous, and' those 
remarks upon his public conduct, which might be with- 
in the strictest limits of allowable public discussion^ 
We know his system of government for the press, and 
t\)Q policy on which it is founded. Nothing, accord- 
ing to his maximsj, ought to be published, wheFeby a 



m 

tyrant may be rendered deservedly odious at home, o 
a conqueror be obstructed in his schemes against the in* 
dependency of foreign nations. Even political rumours 
in conversation, are with him capital crimes. When it 
^vas lately reported in Hanover, that a Russian army 
was marchings for that country, the French Governor 
publicly announced that such rumours were by the 
law of France, punished with death* 

We know too, by Mr. Palm's case, with what ven- 
geance Napoleon pursues the offences of a foreign press, 
when he has the power to punish. To proclaim in a 
neutral country, the dangers with which Europe is 
menaced by his ambition, is with him an atrocious 
crime ; and intitles him to trample on the rights of 
nations, as well as of individuals, in order to avenge it. 
Are we prepared then to prohibit our press from di- 
vulging even such enormities of this man's conduct, as 
it may most behove the people of England to know ? 
If not, what hope of abiding peace with Buonaparte ? 

I will not insist on the danger of quarrels on account 
of his future outrages against other nations, and his 
usurpations of new kingdoms and colonies in time of 
peace ; for to all this we must of course be prepared 
to submit. It would be grossly inconsistent to go to 
War again for such causes, if we make peace at the- 
present juncture ; nor would the people of England be 
easily brought to engage again in a foreign quarrel, 
when persuaded that the most enormous aggrandise- 
ment of France is compatible with their own peace and 
security. Buonaparte, therefore, must be left to act as 
he did after the treaty of Amiens \ and to take if he 

G 2 



84 

pleases the rest of the world, as the price of abstaining 
awhile from war against the British dominions. 

But our commerce, and our navigation, would be- 
come sure subjects of early dispute, unless we were 
willing tamely to submit, to injuries fatal to our trade, 
to our revenue, and maritime power. 

It is impossible, when we consider Napoleon's maxims 
of commercial policy, to doubt that he will avail him- 
self, as soon as the sea is open, of all his enormous 
power and influence, to exclude us by means of treaties, 
and of municipal laws, not only from France, but 
from every other country in Europe, to the Govern- 
ment of which he can dictate. With a sincerity un- 
usual to him, he has already pretty plainly intimated 
that such will be his pacific system, by protesting, 
in limine, when he began to negociate, against every 
stipulation in favour of our commerce. He would 
have no commercial treaties with us whatever. 

And here I must own myself quite at a loss to com- 
prehend the views of those, who regard the interests of 
our commerce and manufactures, as considerations on 
the side of peace. That such is not the opinion of 
our merchants in general, is well known ; and yet they 
judge perhaps only from the necessary effects of a free 
peace competition against them, under the present 
great disadvantages of the country, without taking 
into the account the unfair preferences and exclusions, 
to be systematically opposed to them in foreign Coun- 
tries. 

Who that attentively considers the spirit of Napo-- 
leon's late decree against our commerce, can be insen- 
sible to the danger of his acting on the same principle 



m 

m time of peace? He might then perhaps find means 
td carry into effect, what he now impotently threatens. 
The necessities of his subjects, and of the subjects of 
his allies and dependents, will secure to us their custom 
during war, in spite of his prohibitions ; for it cannot be 
supposed that our Government will omit to employ the 
obvious means of counteracting them. I hope rather 
that we shall embrace the fair opportunity which it 
affords of asserting more firmly our maritime rights, 
r.nd thereby giving new vigour to British commerce. 
But when we shall have no longer the power of opposing 
to regulations on shore, the pressure of our hostilities 
by sea; when the ships of France, Spain, Holland, 
Genoa, and Venice, and all the other maritime Countries 
now hostile to us, shall be able to navigate without 
interruption, on every voyage, and with every species 
of merchandize ; the same interdict on our trade, in the 
inoffensive form of municipal laws, may produce the 
desired effect, and gradually exclude us from almost all 
the ports of Europe. 

Commerce, it is true, will force its way in spite of 
prohibitions, where the demand and the profits suffici- 
ently excite the enterprise of the merchant; but it is 
difficult to believe that the manufactures and trade of 
this country, under the extreme pressure of our public 
burthens, will long retain inherent energy enough in the 
comparative cheapness and skill with which they are 
conducted, to supplant other maritime nations, ia 
their own, or neighbouring markets ; and if by a hostile 
system which we cannot retaliate, they shall be further 
encumbered with all the disadvantages and risques of a 
contraband carriage, while our' rivals can trade safely. 



86 

and with every encouragement that commercial lav\s 
cm afford, I see not how we can hope long to main- 
tain the unequal contest. In this view, the compari- 
son between peace and war is plain and simple. Na- 
poleon is fully resolved to deprive us of the commerce 
of the continent ; but in war, he has the inclination 
without the power; in peace he will have both. He 
holds the continental gates of the market ; but in war 
we command all the roads that lead to it, and can 
therefore'starve him into the admission of our trade : — 
in peace, the roads will be free to him, and he will 
still command the gates. 

Let me not be understood to propose commercial 
advantages as motives of war; but when the ques- 
tion is of abandoning a contest, on a firm perseve- 
rance in which our liberty and national existence 
may depend, from the dread of ruin to our manufactures 
and trade; it is right to consider how these would be 
affected by peace. Let it be shewn therefore what reason 
we have to hope, that Buonaparte would be disposed to 
spare them. He must willingly abstain in this respect 
from lawful means of depressing a rival, or we should 
probably soon have to choose between the ruin of our 
commerce, and the recommencement of war. 

The last, and most decisive objection to Peace, is that 
Napoleon clearly cannot be trusted ; and has now so 
con>pletely broken down the balance of Europe, that he 
nas no guarantee to offer to us for his observance of any 
treaty that he may make. 

That he is faithless, is sufficiently notorious ; and 
what is worse, he feels no restraint from a regard to 
character, but is on the contrary, vain of his fraudful 



m 

policy. This. trait in the character of that, extraordi- 
nary man, has not, in my apprehension, excited all the 
attention that it deserves ; for it is in a high degree 
curious and important. Other conquerors have been 
perfidious ; but I can recollect no instance of any other 
sovereign, who was proud and ostentatious of his 
contempt for truth and justice, both in the cabinet 
and in the field. 

To the intelligent reader, instances of this peculiarity 
in Napoleon, may perhaps readily occur. The 
Egyptian expedition, a creature of his own, abounded, 
from first to last, with proofs of it. His dispatches, 
under a thin veil of expression, too flimsy even to de- 
ceive the lowest of the vulgar, and used only to make 
his address conspicuous, informed France and Europe of 
that foul perfidy, with which nations at peace with the 
Republic, Turks, Mamelukes, and Arabs, were alter* 
nately cajoled and deceived. The sanguinary means 
of conquest, were also coolly narrated ; and Denon, in 
his account of the expedition to Upper Egypt, publish- 
ed at Paris under the auspices of Buonaparte himself, 
needlessly enlarges upon the barbarities committed by 
the French army in the villages of the miserable Cophts, 
as if they added to the honours of his patron. 

He took care also that his impious hypocrisy in that 
country, should be perfectly understood in France^ 
His open disavowal of Christ, in his proclamations to a 
Mahometan people, and his assumption of the name 
of Ali, to countenance the pretence of his being a con- 
vert to their faith, appeared, if I remember right, in his 
official dispatches* as well as in his Egyptian state 
papers; and it is probable, that the desire of being ad- 



8S 

mired for his address at home, more than the hope of 
any direct benefit from the cheat among the Mussul- 
mans, was the motive of that vile expedient. 

His late elaborate though contemptuous answer to 
the Prussian manifesto, is evidently an instance of simi- 
lar conduct. The absurd policy into which he had long 
betrayed the unfortunate monarch, is artfully pointed 
out to the notice of every observant reader; and those 
measures which were the result of a fatal complaisance 
for, and confidence in the Usurper himself, are held up 
as having exposed their credulous and simple author 
to the distrust and hatred of Austria, and thereby 
prepared his fall. 

In publishing Sebastiani's report, he gave, according 
to Mr. Pitt's observation, a greater cause of war than 
even the insidious mission of that agent ; and yet i twas 
evidently published, not for the sake of insulting the 
Powers with which he was then at peace, but for the 
sake of exhibiting his state-craft, and contempt for the 
obligation of treaties. 

Other instances, not less striking, might be found in 
his European policy ; and if so strange a singularity of 
character were still doubtful, we might borrow a stiij 
stronger illustration of it from a case well known in the 
West Indies ; and which, though little noticed in this 
country, was recorded in the Paris Gazettes. I mean 
not the well-known treachery towards Toussaint, but 
the treatment of Pelage, the chief leader in Guada- 
loupe, and the black army under his command. 

The negroes in that Island, remained perfectly quiet 
and obedient to their masters, through the most trying 
revolutionary times, till Victor Hugues, and his bra- 



tlier commissioners, arrived with a decree for their en- 
franchisement, in the summer of 1794; and by their 
help, reconquered the Island from the British army, 
to which it had surrendered. From that time to the 
Peace of Amiens, the new citizens not only defended 
the Island for France, when she had no other posses- 
sion left in the Antilles, but enabled her to do infinite 
mischief to the neighbouring British colonies ; and 
powerfully diverted our arms and treasure from the 
European contest, at the most critical period of the 
war. 

Interior subordination and good conduct, accompa- 
nied these important services ; and Buonaparte himself 
on the restitution of peace, publicly praised these black 
patriots, whose freedom was then anew most solemnly 
guaranteed by the state, and by himself, for having 
maintained the Island in a state of great agricultural 
value. He added, by way of apology to the planters, 
that " it would cost humanity too much to attempt 
a there, a new revolution.'* At the same moment, 
however, he sent a new Governor, La Crosse, with an 
army, to restore slavery and the cartwhip ; and that officer 
was proceeding to execute his instructions, when the 
negroes, under Pelage their chief leader, resisted, and 
drove him from the island. 

They acted, nevertheless, with the utmost huma- 
nity and moderation ; and sent a very loyal address to 
the Chief Consul, humbly justifying their conduct, 
, imputing the strange attempt of La Crosse to a breach 
of his orders, and offering to receive dutifully any other 
Governor whom the Republic might chuse to send. 
Napoleon took them at their word ; and Richepanse, 



90 

whom he sent out with new and most solemn declara- 
tions that liberty should be inviolably maintained, 
was i^ceived by Pelage and the chief part of his black 
army, with all the honours due to the representative of 
the republic. A part however of the negro arfay, 
being less credulous after what they had recently wit- 
nessed, refused to obey his orders ; upon which Pelage 
marched his loyal troops against them, and after 
several bloody conflicts, completely suppressed all 
resistance to the authority of the new governor. 
The last body of the disaffected negro soldiery that 
held out, consisting of some hundreds, took shelter in 
a fort, and when they found it no longer tenable 
against their numerous and brave assailants, followed a 
memorable example of ancient resolution in the cause 
of liberty, by setting fire to their magazine. The ex- 
plosion, not only saved every one of these intrepid men 
from the whips of the drivers, but was fatal to many of 
their brave deluded brethren, who were approaching to 
storm the walls. 

Buonaparte, in his Gazette account, paid a very high 
tribute of praise to the astonishing gallantry of Pelage 
and his black battalions, by whom such determined 
enemies had been subdued. But what was their imrne- 
diatereward? To be treacherously divided, seized at their 
different posts by surprize, sent on board transports, 
and,as was supposed in the neighbouring Islan-ds,drown- 
ed atsea. The only reason for imagining that the report 
of their being destroyed in that mode, may not have been 
universally true 3 is that at the commencement of the 
present war, an article appeared in some French news- 



91 

papers, importing that Pelage was set at liberty from a 
prison in France ; but it was probably only designed to 
inspire a fear into our Government, that this brave 
leader might again be employed to annoy us in the 
Antilles : for neither he, nor his exiled followers, have 
since been heard of 

I do not cite this case for the very needless purpose 
of shewing that Buonaparte is perfidious in the highest 
degree, but to prove that he is proud of that quality ; 
for this unparalleled instance of fraud and ingratitude, 
though notorious in the West Indies, would pro- 
bably never have been fully known in Europe, if he 
had chosen to conceal it; and he had actually con- 
cealed the cause of the expulsion of La. Crosse, toge- 
ther with the loyal address of Pelage and his country- 
men, for the sake of suppressing the disgraceful result 
of his first attempt on negro liberty in Guadaloupe, 
till he received accounts of the success of his second 
perfidious stratagem. But as soon as he learnt from 
Richepanse, that all the military negroes were destroy- 
ed, and their unarmed cultivators in his power, he fill- 
ed the columns of the Moniteur with their address, 
though then several months old ; and a few days after, 
announced all the events that followed ; relating coolly 
the arrest and deportation of Pelage and his troops, 
without even accusing them of a fault, or suggesting 
any other excuse, for that unexampled perfidy of 
which they were the victims. 

Such is the man, whose good faith must now be our 
only security for his maintaining the duties of peace, 
or observing the conditions of Treaties. Were he, 
while bound by pacific conventions to us, sudden- 



fy to land an army in Ireland or Great Britain, h£ 
would rather boast of, than blush for, the stratagem. 
Much less would he be ashamed of insidiously stirring 
t>p against us new and dangerous wars in India, for 
which he would immediately prepare, when the sea 
should be no longer impervious to his emissaries and his 
droops. 

The difficulties of making peace with enemies of a 
faithless character, have heretofore been commonly ob- 
viated or lessened, by the mediation and guarantee of 
powerful neutral states ; cr where these have not 
thought fit directly to interfere, a treaty has still been 
held the less insecure, because other nations likely to 
censure, perhaps to assist in avenging, any flagrant act 
of perfidy, were privy to the compact. But France, 
having left in the civilized world no independent 
Power but England at all capable of annoying her, has 
no longer any thing to fear, nor have we any thing to 
hope, from the interference of other States. 

Is there any reason then to expect that the sense of 
self interest, or the political maxims of Napoleon, will 
lead him to adhere to his pacific engagements? On 
the contrary, were his revenge and hatred towards us, 
and even his dread of the example of our civil liberty, 
removed, still he would feel it necessary to crush a 
power which so obstinately opposes the march of his 
ambition. 

It is a common error, of which we find many fatal 
examples in history, to suppose that a mind inflamed 
with the lust of conquest and dominion, has set certain 
bounds to its desires ; and that by allowing it the quiet 
possession of present usurpations, it will be sated and 



- 9$ - 

become quiescent. As well might we expect the flames 
to subside, because the conflagration is already enor- 
mous, while there is fresh fuel within reach of their 
spires. The prodigious ascent of Buonaparte, is alone a 
sure earnest, that he will never rest, while it is possible to 
mount any higher. — A mighty monarch, who inherited 
his throne from his ancestors, may greatly aggrandize 
himself by conquest perhaps, without giving decisive 
proof of an ambition absolutely boundless : but what 
I can be capable of satisfying the man, who when sud- 
denly elevated from a private station, to the throne of 
the Bourbons, and possessed of a dominion greater by 
far than the Bourbons ever possessed, could not for a 
moment be content ? It is not enough for him, that 
his own brows are bound with an Imperial diadem. — 
He must set crowns also on the heads of all his near 
relations and connections. Nay his friends and follow- 
ers, must be raised to the rank of Princes, and placed 
on a level with the most illustrious houses of Europe, 
Is it in nature that ambition like this, will ever re- 
spect any limits over which it is possible to vault ? 
What human passion was ever diminished by excessive 
indulgence, while the power of its more extensive grati- 
fication remained ? 

Let it be recollected that the appetite of a con- 
queror is, not to enjoy dominion, but to acquire 
and extend it ; or rather, to find in that favou- 
rite work, new sources of military fame. He values 
a kingdom after it is subdued, no more than the sports- 
man a fox or hare, after it is run down . the pleasure is 
in the pursuit. Alexander understood this, though 
bis friend Parmenio did not, when Darius offered 



94 

half his dominions to save the rest, together with his 
daughter in marriage. " I would accept the proposal/* 
said the friend, " were I Alexander," — cc so would I 9 9 * 
replied the conqueror, " were I Parmenio." 

In a word, when we consider attentively the peculiar 
force of this destructive passion, in the breast of Buona^ 
parte, and the abstinence from its gratification which 
must be the price of a durable peace with England, his 
personal feelings, still more than his interest or his policy, 
render his adherence to a pacific system utterly hopeless. 

For these reasons, as well as others, the policy of 
treating with France at the present conjuncture* is by 
no means like that which prevailed at the close of the 
last war. The treaty of Amiens, was, I then thought* and 
still think, a wise and laudable measure. Buonaparte 
had not then given unequivocal proof that he was actua- 
ted by views incompatible with a true or lasting peace. 
On the contrary, there was reason to hope that he 
desired to build his future fame, and his domestic autho- 
rity, on that popular foundation. Besides, he had not 
then abolished the republican government, and estab- 
lished his power upon the basis of an absolute monarchy,, 
The popular voice in France therefore was likely to be 
respected, and it was decidedly in favour of peace. 

At the same time it seemed highly probable, that the 
strength of the republic, if not her warlike disposition* 
would decline, when the pressure of foreign hostilities 
should be removed* -and her discordant interior ele- 
ments be left to their natural motion. These are 
times When no man need be ashamed of erroneous 
calculations on such subjects 3 for the extrardinary 
"ctjurse of events has placed the most heedless 'rashness* 



95 

and most cautious circumspection, iri political judg- 
ment, nearly on a level. Now however, the character 
and system of Buonaparte are become matters not of 
speculation but experience, while, his power seems to 
be irreversibly established : consequently the hopes 
which justified the treaty of Amiens, could not now 
be rationally admitted, even if the state of Europe 
were equally favourable to peace. 

But the most important distinction between that 
case and the present, is to be found in the much 
altered, and now deplorable state of the Continent 
The great military powers, our natural allies, were then 
left in a condition to keep in check the ambition of 
France, by a timely union ; and in this we had some 
apparent security for her future moderation, which is 
now entirely lost. 

In this respect, the case is most decisively altered 
for the worse, even since the late negociationat Paris* 
Neither the example therefore of the administration 
which treated at Amiens, nor that of the present 
cabinet and Mr. Fox, would afford any sanction for a 
new experiment upon the good faith and moderation of 
France, after the battle of Auerstadt, and the total 
ruin of Prussia. 

Surely the ungrateful treatment, of that power, will 
convince us of the extreme folly of hoping to conciliate 
Napoleon by a timid pacific system. If not, we shall 
give a more striking instance than has yet been exhibit- 
ed of that infatuation which prepares for him his 
victims ; since England has at present a security in 
war, that neither Prussia nor Austria possessed. 

Such are my. reasons for thinking that a peace witk 



96 

Buonaparte, would not lessen, but aggravate our dan- 
gers. — Those who maintain the contrary, are prudent- 
ly sparing of explanations. They hold it enough to 
spread before our eyes the dangers and inconveniences 
of war, without shewing how they are to be diminished 
by peace j or what possible hope we have, that any 
peace we can make will be lasting. 

In a view to finances indeed, they say, how are 
we long to carry on the war ? — I admit the difficulty, 
but retort the question, how are we to carry on the 
peace ? 

Dares any Minister promise us a peace which will 
50 far deliver us from the necessity of defensive pre- 
cautions, as greatly to diminish our expences ? — But 
to justify a negotiation in this view, its advocates 
should go much farther, and shew, that contrary to the 
calculations of our merchants, peace will make no shrink 
in our commercial revenue ; otherwise the diminution of 
import and export duties, may be more than equal to 
any possible saving of expenditure. Some Statesmen 
are said to assert, that we may by persevering in the 
system of finance, established by Mr. Pitt, soon find 
resources for prosecuting the war without any addi- 
tional taxes; but nobody I believe will maintain, that a 
peace destructive of our commerce would be consistent 
with any such hope. 

If our finances were likely to be improved in peace, 
it would be a new and decisive reason with Buonaparte 
for the speedy renewal of war. But without taking 
any such motive into the account, it must be, and is 
admitted., even by the most sanguine advocates for a 
Peace, that its duration would be in tjje highest degree 
i 



\ 



97 

precarious. We must therefore set against the very slen- 
der chance of financial savings by a pacific system, the 
probable and vast expence of renewing, at an early pe- 
riod, our war establishments, after they may have been 
broken up or reduced. 

When these considerations are fairly weighed, it will 
appear very doubtful whether a steady prosecution of 
the war be not the most economical, as well as the 
safest course, we can at present pursue. That would 
at least, I dare affirm, be the case, supposing the war to 
be conducted upon right principles, and such as the 
duty of self-preservation, at this awful crisis, demands. 
If we are still to persevere in military expeditions, to 
distant countries, those sure sources of enormous pecu- 
lation and waste, the war indeed may be costly enough j 
but if we wisely keep at home the army which maybe 
essential to cur domestic safety, act only on the 
defensive on shore, and assert firmly our belligerent 
rights on the ocean, we shall find it more frugal by far 
to continue at open war, than to suspend hostilities 
again for a year or two, by an anxious and dangerous 
peace. Such a use of our maritime power as the state 
of Europe, and of the world, would abundantly justify, 
and as the late conduct of the enemy invites, would give 
us means of maintaining the contest for fifty years if 
necessary, without an additional tax, except such as 
France, her Allies, and the States under her influence, 
would pay. 

The only additional argument for sheathing the 
sword that is commonly urged, appears to me perfect* 
ly frivolous, "If we continue the war, it is said, from a 
dread of making peace with France in her present state 

H 



98 

of aggrandisement, we may continue it for ever; for we 
cannot deprive her of her conquests." Permanent war, 
no doubt is a dreadful idea ; but let it be contrasted, as 
to meet fairly the present arguments for war, it ought, 
with permanent servitude to France, and perhaps its hor- 
rors will vanish. 

The objection however supposes, that because we 
cannot dislodge the enemy from his present possessions, 
they must of course be perpetual; and that all the other 
dangers which forbid a pacific system at the present 
alarming juncture, are also interminable. But if the ter- 
ritorial aggrandisement of France, and what is not less 
dangerous, the talents, strength, and ambition of her 
present government, are to last for ever, so much the less 
can we afford to divide with her the possession of the 
sea. If in that case, the naval power of the enemy is to 
vegetate long and freely upon the enormous fields of 
dominion now plowed up for its culture, farewell to 
every hope of our permanent safety : but we may now 
cut off from it by war, that maritime carriage and 
trade, which are essential to its nutrition and growth. 

For my part, I regard neither Buonaparte, nor his 
conquests, nor his ambitious system, as immortal ; 
though all may live long enough for the ruin of 
England, if we give him a peace at this juncture. 

Judging from historical examples, and natural pro- 
bability, which notwithstanding the strange occurrences 
of the age, we must still do, if we would anticipate 
future events, I cannot believe that the new erected 
empire of France will long survive the builder. It has 
been put together too hastily, and with too many un- 
seasoned materials, to be durable* It may even fait 



99 

by the rupture of that military scaffolding by which 
it was raided. The deposed Sovereigns may probably 
not be restored, nor the conquered nations delivered 
from a foreign master ; but it seems probable that the 
Captains of this second Alexander, will at his decease at 
least, if not during his life, carve out for themselves their 
respective kingdoms, without much respect for the 
claims of the Corsican family. He has already shewn 
them the way to take up crowns with the sword, and 
has whetted their appetite for Sovereign power, by the 
elevation of their comrades. France, therefore, may 
like Macedon, be soon glad to maintain her ancient 
borders against those who conquered in her name; and 
new political combinations, may produce a new balance 
of powers in Europe. The conqueror himself even, may 
possibly meet the fate of his brother Emperors, Csesar, 
and Dessalines ; and if we must at last fall, it will be 
something at least, to have escaped by a protracted 
war, the yoke of Buonaparte. 

We should dread subjection to this man, beyond all 
other foreign masters ; not only because he personally 
hates us, and all that is most noble among us ; but 
because, of all those scourges of mankind called con- 
querors, there has been none more truly odious. 

And here let me deprecate with just alarm, let me re- 
probate with honest indignation,the groveling sentiments 
that would ascribe to this phenomenon and reproach 
of our age, the character of a hero, or the appellation of 
Great. Should we unhappily fall under his yoke, we shall 
be compelled like Frenchmen to praise him -, but let 
us not prematurely teach our children to admire, or 
even to view him without abhorrence. It is of some 

Ha 



100 

importance to the cause of morals, and more to the 
temporal destiny of mankind, that the standard of 
heroism should not be reduced to the low level of 
Buonaparte. 

There has always been in the world a fatal propensity to 
admire those pests of our species, called conquerors, and 
to pay them in fame the wages for which they labour in the 
fields of blood. But this error has in general one excuse. 
We commonly observe in this mischievous race, as in the 
lion, a savage dignity at least, if not a generosity of 
character. Even in their crimes there is a sublimity, 
which inspires terror indeed, and perhaps indignation, 
but not disgust or contempt. How different the man, 
who after the battle of Auerstadt, could send forth those 
pitiful bulletins against an unhappy woman, and a 
Queen, which have appeared in the French Gazettes $ 
who has repeatedly indulged the same paltry spite 
against the unfortunate Queen of Naples, and the brave 
Englishman that foiled him in Syria; who refused to 
allow the body of the gallant old Duke of Brunswick 
to be laid in the tomb of his ancestors ; and who in the 
case of Trafalgar, and many other instances, has not 
scrupled to disgrace himself in the eyes of all Europe, by 
the grossest forgeries and falsehoods. 

I fear that the detestation due to this last mean part 
of Buonaparte's character, begins to wear out, from the 
frequency of its exhibition. Let us recollect then if 
we can, any other man in ancient or rnodern story, 
known by the appellation of Great, who ever stooped 
to the pitiful tricks of systematic falsehood, in their 
public relations of facts. To the dignity of ancient 
heroism the vice was utterly unknown i and though 



101 

in our modern wars with the Kings of France, accounts 
of battles are said to have been unfair, at least on the 
side of our enemies, the misrepresentations have been 
such as might, in good measure, be ascribed to the de- 
ceptious reports of subordinate commanders, or to the 
sincere partiality of self-love. The misrepresentations 
of the Brussels Gazettes became in the last reign pro- 
verbial ; yet the French King was probably more the 
dupe of flattery, than the author of wilful falsehood. 
Widely different however, were the glosses and strongest 
distortions of facts used in those days, from the shame- 
less effrontery which could represent our glorious vic- 
tory at Trafalgar as a battle in which we had lost fifteen 
or sixteen ships of the line, and forge letters from 
Gibraltar to confirm the vile imposture. 

There is even a generical difference between this 
mean habit of Napoleon, and the falsehoods ever before 
used by any Monarch who has stooped to this gro- 
velling vice. Deceits have been practised privately in 
the cabinet ; but they have been regarded, at least 
by those misjudging minds which used them, as the 
lawful circumvention of an enemy or a rival \ and such 
violations of truth, have commonly been perpetrated 
in the hope of escaping detection. But the mendacious 
Gazettes of Buonaparte, differ from such secret and 
particular crimes, as open prostitution, differs from a 
private intrigue. He publishes without a blush, 
relations the gross falsehood of which he knows to be 
notorious at the moment to every man in Europe, 
except those who are prevented from reading any 
newspapers but his own ; and which must soon lose 
their credit even with his own deluded subjects, 



102 

For a temporary domestic purpose, this mighty Mo- 
narch is content to incur an infamy from which eveiy 
gentleman shrinks with abhorrence, and the proper 
epithet for which is too low to sully these sheets. 

If any man can regard a contemptible trait of charac- 
ter like this, as compatible with true greatness, let him 
look to another criterion. There is a comity in heroism, 
and a sympathy between great minds, which have 
secured to illustrious characters when fallen, respect 
and kindness from their conquerors. Antiquity 
abounds with examples of such magnanimity, which 
we admire, though we feel, at the same time, that they 
could hardly be of difficult practice. But the pseudo- 
heroism of Buonaparte, has no such amiable feature. 

I will not stop to illustrate his odious want of sensi- 
bility in such cases, by instances to which Europe has 
been sufficiently awake ; but refer to one that appears to 
me the most remarkable and shameful. 

He had once an illustrious opponent, who attracted 
much attention in the present day, and will probably 
be still more admired in the calm view of future ages ; 

I mean that extraordinary African Toussaint. Napo- 
leon himself pronounced his eulogy in these terms, 
u Called by his talents to the chief command in St 
#< Domingo, he preserved the Island to France during 
" a long and arduous foreign war, in which she could 
u do nothing to support him. He destroyed civil 

II war, put an end to the persecutions of ferocious ft en, 
u and restored to honour the religion and worship ot 
u God, from whom all things come"* The praise 

• Speech of July or August, i8az, in the London Newspapers of 
August 9th. 

5 



103 

when bestowed, was by no means excessive, or even 
adequate ; and yet Toussaint's subsequent conduct, 
added greatly to his former glory. Incorruptible, dis- 
interested, intrepid, and humane, he performed, in his 
last contest for freedom, actions that would bear com- 
parison with the most brilliant traits of ancient heroism 
and virtue ; and they were crowned by a triumph over 
the conquerors of Europe. We know too well the 
rest. Circumvented by the foulest fraud, he fell into 
the power of his unprincipled enemy. 

Here, however it might have been supposed, hostilit y 
would have ended, and generosity begun to act. Deliver- 
ed from the opposition of his arms, the usurper might 
have been expected to honour this extraordinary cha- 
racter, and take pride in rewarding his merit. The 
interesting singularity of his fortunes and extraction, 
as well as his worth, would have led a mind of any 
liberality to treat him with tenderness and respect. 
Though depressed in early life below the level of man- 
hood, he had risen to the rank of heroes. Before he 
mounted into the region of illustrious deeds, he had to 
cleanse his wings from the filth of a brutalizing bond- 
age : Yet he became a victorious general, a wise le- 
gislator, an enlightened statesman, and the chief of a 
people, formed by his own genius, from slaves and 
barbarians, into citizens and soldiers. He was never 
conquered $ and what is far higher praise, never faith- 
less, cruel, or unjust. In all the relations of private 
life, he was truly amiable s and to crown all, a pious 
Christian. 

Who, that ever pretended to the appellation of Great, 
except the vile Buonaparte, could have torn such a cap- 



104 

tlve from his beloved family, and thrown him into a 
dungeon to perish !! A Cassar or Alexander, would have 
honoured* a Timur or an Attila, would have spared, 
him ; but it was his hard lot to fall into the hands of an 
enemy, who adds to the ferocity of a savage, the apathy 
of a sceptic, and the baseness of a sham<reriegado. 

When we add to this want of every generous and 
elevated sentiment, the numberless positive crimes 
against humanity, justice, and honour, by which Na- 
poleon is disgraced, it seems astonishing, and is truly 
opprobrious to the moral taste of the age, that he 
should still find any admirers. 

There may, I admit, be a dignity even in the most 
vicious characters. When Satan is represented rising 
from the lake of fire, haranguing the fallen Angels, or 
steering his adventurous course through Chaos, to wage 
new wars against the Almighty, in a new created world, 
we conceive of him with fear and hatred indeed, but 
there is a majesty in his crimes, which screens him 
from contempt. Not so, when he meanly lies to the 
archangel ; and still Jess, when, in the shape of a loath- 
some reptile, he sits at the ear of our first mother, 
practising detestable frauds and falsehoods upon her 
fancy, for the ruimof her innocence and peace. His 
dignity now vanishes, and admiration is lost in abhor- 
rence. Yet the fiend still sins in the prosecution of a 
public purpose : he is serving the State of Hell, and 
not merely the individual Satan. The heroism of 
Buonaparte, on the contrary, is sunk in selfishness, as 
well as in despicable crimes. His private persona] 
feelings, are ever predominant :. it is the opposition to, 
or the libel against Napoleon, that provokes his bit- 



105 

terest vengeance — it is for little self, and its connections, 
that he murders, deceives, insults, oppresses, and be- 
trays. 

The extreme elevation to which talents and success 
have raised him, makes these mean and loathsome qua- 
lities only the more opprobrious and disgusting. How 
abject must be the constitution of that mind, which 
such fortunes could not ennoble ! Antichristian philo- 
sophy, behold thy work ! See here the difference between 
thy godless heroism, and the dignity, I will not say of 
Christian, but even of Pagan, greatness. The majesty 
of the Temple it ruined, because there was no sense of a 
present Divinity to guard it from pollution. It is as if 
the sublime dome of St. Pauls wereiined, and its lofty 
pillars covered, with the rags of Chick-lane, and the 
offals of Newgate- market. 

If the irreligious character of the age has generated 
this spurious greatness, let us distinguish and revere 
the appropriate justice of Heaven. We would have 
morals without religion; and God has sent us ambition 
without dignity in return. We admire talents more than 
morals; and he has chastised us by means of a mind born 
to illustrate the pestilent effects of their disunion. We 
have rebelled against him, by opposing publicly to his 
laws the idolatrous worship of expediency; and he has 
put the scourge into a hand which dishonours, while 
it chastises, our proud and boastful age. It is like the 
punishment of a noble traitor, whose bodily indignities 
and pains are aggravated, by the sentence that he shall 
receive them from the vile hands of a common execu- 
tioner. 

Should this man however become our Master, his vices 



1Q& 

will no longer be objects of censure, but rather themes fo* 
applause, and patterns for imitation. The moral taste 
of the Country, and of Europe, will be corrupted by the 
example of their Mighty Lord, as well as byt he de- 
basing effects of his oppression, and the licentious 
manners of his soldiers. I repeat, therefore, that 
should perseverance in war fail to produce our final 
deliverance from the Power of France, it will be still an 
effect of great value if it secures us from that of Buona- 
parte. 

Sect. 3. The military force of the Country ought gg 
be greatly cncreased* 

Having thus cursorily shewn that a treaty of peace 
would be a source of new dangers, rather than of secu- 
rity to the Country, against the power of France, I pro- 
ceed to point out the means by which such security 
may be effectually attained. 

They are, in general, military vigour, pati- 
ence, unanimity, and reformation; means, the 
first and last of which I propose, distinctly, but 
briefly, to consider. 

And first, a much greater proportion of military 
vigour, than now exists, must be infused into our de- 
fensive preparations ; or the nation will very probably 
be lost. 

I have already offered some observations, tending to 
shew, that the conquest, as well as the invasion of our 
Country, is by no means an impossible event ; though 
we may, like the unhappy and infatuated Prussians, 
proudly believe the reverse. We are at present in. 
peculiar danger of a fatal self deception on this point ; 
because the enemy, occupied with the conquest of 



107 

other nations, or engaged in treacherous negotiations 
for peace, has long discontinued his threats of an im- 
mediate- invasion. The danger had before been les- 
sened in our eyes by familiarity, and is now still more 
diminished by imaginary distance. We may fondly 
suppose, perhaps, that Buonaparte seriously expects to 
vanquish us by a commercial war; or that, having 
easier conquests in view, he has ceased to be intent 
upon the speedy subjugation of England. 

It is true that he has for the moment other work en 
hand ; and it is possible that he may not again directly 
employ himself in that of our destruction by arms, til^ 
he has finished the defeat of his continental enemies, 
and found that we are not to be ensnared into a ruinous, 
peace. Hence we have a happy, and I trust a provi* 
dential opportunity, of better preparing for our defence. 

But that this season of apparent security will last 
long, cannot be supposed by those who reflect on the 
present situation of affairs, unless they expect that 
Russia will still be able to turn the tide of war, and 
find long employment for all the armies of France. 
May such be the event; but the contrary is much 
rather to be feared. While 1 write, it is not impro- 
bable that a new treaty of peace for the continent, has 
been extorted by the threat of restoring the throne of 
Poland ; and that French columns have begun their 
march from the Vistula, which may soon be on the 
coast of the Channel, Besides, the immense armies 
now advancing towards the seat of war, occupy already 
all the intermediate space ; and as soon as the com* 
mand to halt is given in the front, the rear divisions 



108 

will be ready to throw themselves into the now vacant 
camp at Boulogne. 

Those innumerable hosts, will then have no object 
worthy of their arms, but the conquest of Great Bri- 
tain. We* shall employ the undivided attention of an 
enemy, who adds to the insatiable ambition, the mili- 
tary talents, and the fortune of an Alexander, the 
multitudinous forces of a Xerxes. If half a mil- 
lion of French soldiers, elated with victory, were 
not sufficient for our destruction, he could rein- 
force them with near as many more of the vassals whom 
he calls Allies ; while France herself is ready at his call, 
to supply him every year with eighty thousand new 
conscripts, in the prime of youthful manhood. 

His means of wafting armies to our shores, are indeed 
at present limited and precarious. If they were not, 
our situation would be desperate indeed. But those 
means have encreased, amd are rapidly encreasing, and 
we may not be able to find, by rencounters with his 
fleets on the ocean, opportunities of checking their 
growth. When we look at the geographical range of 
the territories now at the devotion of France, and the 
maritime resources they furnish, it would be irrational 
to hope that the hostile navies will remain in their pre- 
sent state of depression ; though we may, by perseve- 
rance in the war, maintain a decisive superiority over 
them, such as to prevent their openly contesting with 
us the dominion of the sea. The mind of Buona- 
parte will soon direct all its energies towards their 
restitution. Ships and seamen will be the only ac- 
ceptable tribute which a fawning world can bring to 
him. He will invite, or exact them, from every pro- 



■1Q9 

vince, from every conquered country, from every 
Ally, and even perhaps from countries which he yet 
allows to be nominally neutral. In short, " all the re- 
" sources of his Empire" (to quote his own words) 
will be again cf employed in constructing fleets, form- 
" ing his marine, and improving his ports."* 

Though his threats of invasion have been suspended, 
not so his naval preparations. He has not discon- 
tinued the building of that great number of ships of 
the line, the keels of which were long since laid at 
Antwerp, at Brest, and in various other ports of his 
dominions ; and the dock yards of Venice, are now 
fully employed, as well as those of Spain and Holland, 
in preparing for him a regular marine. Mean time, 
the Boulogne flotilla, has been carefully maintained 
upon that extensive scale, and in that fitness for 
immediate service, to which he had raised it before his 
his march for the Rhine. It is, if public and general 
report may be credited, capable of transporting by a 
single embarkation, 150,000 men, to our shores. Nor 
is that flotilla to be despised, as an instrument of 
invasion, when in the hands of a man prodigal of the 
lives of his troops, and inexorably bent on the accom- 
plishment of his purpose : more especially now, when 
he has gained renown enough, and strength enough, 
both at borne and abroad, to be in no danger, from 
the discontent that might be excited by the loss of an 
army. 

We had some security perhaps till now, from the 
dilemma in which Napoleon was placed, by the necessity 

* M, Bacher's address to the Diet of RatUbon, Sept. 1 805 . 



110 

of either Tisquing bis own person in the passage, Of 
resigning to another commander the glory of the expe- 
dition, in the event of its success. But now he can 
afford to spare, to Murat, to Massena, Davoust, or 
some other distinguished General, the renown of con- 
quering Great Britan ; nor feel any apprehension that 
such a delegate will use the large force to be committed 
to him, either at Boulogne, or on this side the channel 
so as to triumph with safety, and avoid the fate of Moreau. 
The Usurper will therefore most probably not expose 
himself to the inconvenience of leading the army of 
England, nor rashly re-engage himself to do so; but 
will yield to the pravers of his anxiously affectionate 
subjects, and devolve on some favourite Chief, that 
hazardous command. 

But the Boulogne flotilla will not be relied upon, as 
the only mean of invasion. In other ports of the 
channel, in the German ocean, the Atlantic, the 
Mediterranean, and the Adriatic, regular and powerful 
armaments will be prepared, so as to distract our at- 
tention, and divide our naval force; nor, would it be 
possible for us to blockade them all, through every season, 
and with fleets and squadrons sufficiently strong, if our 
navy were three times as large and potent as it actually is. 
It would be preposterous therefore to suppose, that 
from no part of his immense maritime regions, will the 
enemy be able to send expeditions to sea ; and not less 
so, to rely that his fleets and transports will all be 
met with by British squadrons, before they can land 
troops on our shores. — Even the vigilance and energy 
of Nelson, could not prevent the powerful invasion of 
Egypt ; and if prior to 1805, any man believed that 



Ill 

it is impossible for the hostile fleets to steal from their 
harbours, to perform voyages, and to land forces 
in distant parts, without being arrested by British 
fleets in their way, he must now be quite cured of that 
mistake. We have learnt by reiterated experience 
within the last two years, that all this may be done, 
without the discovery even of the point of destination, 
till it is too late to frustrate the plan. 

It would not be quite so easy, I admit, to collect and 
send to sea with equal secrecy, a fleet large enough to 
Waft over an army adequate to the invasion of England ; 
but supposing such fleets to be collected at more ports 
than one, even this might very probably be effected. 
It must not, however, be concluded that the enemy 
will certainly be driven to the necessity of embarking 
by stealth. — A much more likely, and feasible expedient 
would be, the bringing together, by combined and 
well concerted movements, a large part of his naval 
force, at the destined point of embarkation, and then 
sailing openly for our coast, under the protection of 
a fleet such as we could not immediately collect ships 
enough to intercept and defeat. 

It has been computed by sea officers of reputation 
and judgment, that 150,000 men, might be em- 
barked at Boulogne in a single day : for the vessels 
now collected there, are so constructed as to take the 
ground without damage ; and when anchored at high 
water mark, on a long sandy beach which is im- 
pregnably fortified for their protection, they are left 
dry for hours by the ebb tide ; so that the troops 
may march on board by means of planks, as quickly 
almost as they could file off into their barracks s and 



112 

at the return of high water, be ready to put to sea. IF 
so, the command of the channel for eight and forty 
hours, might suffice for the most formidable invasion. 

Apian of this kind is supposed to have been formed, 
in the summer of 1805. The combined fleets, after 
leading a good part of ours to the West Indies, were 
suddenly to have returned, to have raised the block- 
ades of Cadiz, Brest, and Rochfort, and being rein- 
forced by all the ships in those ports, proceeded to 
Boulogne, where perhaps the fleet from the Texel 
would have been brought to their aid. They were 
then to have convoyed the flotilla, with as large 
an army as Buonaparte thought proper to embark ; and 
England might possibly have been lost before her scat- 
tered fleets could be collected in sufficient numbers to 
oppose them. This plan, it is true, was frustrated 
by the energy of Nelson, and the prudence of our Ad- 
miralty; and above all, by the mercy of Providence, which 
combined with those means, very propitious coincident 
events. But similar schemes may be formed hereafter j 
they will become more feasible in proportion to the 
increase of the enemy's force; and their chances of 
success may be multiplied, by the collection of an 
adequate number of transports at different ports, far 
remote from each other. They would also be greatly 
facilitated, by the possession of Venice, and of those 
other new maritime stations, acquired by Buonaparte> 
during the two last campaigns 5 for these, give him not 
oniy new ships, but the means of diverting the navy 
of England by a much wider extent than before, in ne- 
cessary foreign service.— -Unhappily, our own distant 
conquests, of which at this conjuncture^ we are unac- 

1 



115 

coiintably fond, by no means lessen, but oil the contra- 
ry, encrease this advantage. 

It would be easy to enlarge on this subject, and to 
demonstrate clearly the facility of open invasion, by the 
sudden concentration of an inferior, during the disper- 
sion of a superior navy. But having many new topics 
yet to touch upon, I will rely upon what has already 
been offered, or rather on the plain nature of the case, 
in proof that we may probably be invaded by a very 
powerful army, notwithstanding our maritime power. 

On what human foundation then can we repose a 
tranquil confidence in the present state of the Country ? 
We have no inexpugnable fortresses, like Austria and 
Prussia ; no Alpine mountains, like Switzerland ; no 
dykes and means of inundation, like Holland ; no 
sandy deserts, like Egypt. All those impediments 
have been surmounted by our formidable enemy ; but 
he would find none such to oppose his progress in 
England. The torrent must be stemmed, if at all, by 
the force of our arms in the field. 

What then is this last retrenchment of the inesti- 
mable liberties of England ? What is this ulterior de- 
fence, against the most deplorable revolution that con- 
quest ever made j against miseries more dreadful, those 
of the devoted Jews excepted, than any people ever 
endured ? 

We have a regular arm)', which I will suppose to be 
in point of quality throughout, such as specimens of it 
have gloriously proved to be upon trial, both in Italy 
and Egypt, But it is widely dispersed, by a policy 
which at this arduous conjuncture I am quite at a 
loss to comprehend, upon foreign and distant services. 

I 



m 

Not less than five different British armies are said to- 
be at this moment employed in, or destined to, five- 
different regions of the globe : and I am really afraid to 
state the small amount to which some credible 
report^ now reduce the regular infantry actually within 
the realm. 

But it is not neccessary to my argument to ascer- 
tain such alarming facts : for were our whole army 
within? the island, it would still be very unequal, in 
point of numbers* to our defence, supposing an invasion 
to take place; on a sgale suitable to the magnitude of 
the object, and to the ordinary maxims of our enemy; 
Could our regular troops be collected at once from 
every part of the island^ they might find themselves 
greatly outnumbered But we should, through the 
great quickness of the ensmy's motions, be obliged 
to fight him previous to any general union of our forces* 
or give him possession of the Capital. 

A country so exposed by the extent of its assailable 
coast,' and by its defenceless interior situation as Eng- 
land, would perhaps hardly be safe from conquest, 
much less from ruin, when invaded* if it contained in 
it's whole extent, three soldiers for every enemy that 
should land on its shores-. Whereas France, if she in- 
vade us at all, will probably send^ a force exceeding 
that of our regulars and militia united. I suppose, it 
is trua, in this estimate, an equality of military charac- 
ter ; but I calculate also on* that new system of tactics- 
which is so formidable in offensive war, in which our 
enemies so fatally excel, and for which England presents 
to them a most favourable field. 

That daring confidence which never measures* 



Us 

difficulties in advancing, which reckons too surely on 
Victory, to make any provision for retreat, has been 
known ever since the days of Agathocles, to be most 
propitious to invaders \ and it has probably been partly 
owing to a more cautious character of war in modern 
ages, that the subversion of thrones by conquest, has 
been a very rare event in Europe, till the present 
disastrous times. But to this audacious spirit, our 
enemies have added an astonishing celerity of move- 
ments, which is perhaps still more peculiarly characteris- 
tic of their military system, and a greater cause of their 
success. The invaded country has no time to collect its 
proper domestic resources, much less receive succour 
from its allies $ it must submit to the ravages of a 
conqueror, or with such a force as it can bring in a 
moment into the field, stake its fate upon the issue 
of a battle. If a defeat be the event, the victors ad- 
vance with a rapidity that destroys every ulterior hope. 
It is the speed, not of an army, but a post. They 
bring the first news of their own victory to the dis- 
mayed capital ; and the flying divisions of the routed 
army, instead of meeting friendly battalions advancing 
to their support, find enemies in their front, as well as 
in their rear. Their utmost speed is arrested by their 
impetuous pursuers, and the passes by which they hoped 
to escape, are seized by hostile corps, who arrive at the 
defiles before them. It is then too late to call out an irre- 
gular defensive force; or even to collect the regular troops 
ffomdistant positions, and the garrisonsof interior towns* 
The invaders have seized upon the central points of 
union, have occupied every pass, and cut orTevery source 
of communication or concert, between the different dis* 

\% 



116 

tricts. The vital organs of the state too, are in theif 
hands, and they can controul all its functions. The 
disconnected efforts of patriotism and courage that 
may still be made in different places, are like the con- 
vulsive motions of members just severed from the 
body ; a mere semblance of life, momentary and 
useless. 

When I reflect upon the terrible effects of this 
impetuous warfare, by which Europe has been re- 
peatedly dismembered ; when I behold the last ex- 
ample of its force, in the yet rolling fragments of a 
mighty monarchy, which it has recently burst asunder; 
I am amazed and confounded, at the strange presump- 
tion of those who rely on our present means of inte- 
rior defence, while they admit the probability of 
invasion. 

It has been said I know, that though London were 
lost, the Country would still be safe. Were our proper 
defensive preparations fully made, it would be right to 
cherish that opinion. But it cannot be supposed that 
the metropolis would be given up without a battle ; 
and should we lose a battle first, and London after- 
wards, our fitial security must depend upon exertions 
equally difficult and precarious. I am at a loss, 
to comprehend the practical views upon which an 
opposite opinion can be founded. 

That the loss of the metropolis, would immediately 
follow the loss of a battle, unless we had a second army 
at hand to retrieve the miscarriage of the first, is evi- 
dent. What then would be our military reserve, 
supposing a regular army large enough to make a 
stand against the invaders, should be defeated ? "Our 



117 

volunteers, a hundred tongues will be ready to reply, 
are that grand ulterior resource; nay many of them, 
would be in the advanced guard of their Country. " 

The volunteers, I most cordially admit, will do all 
that their numbers, their degree of discipline, and 
their physical powers, animated by an ardent love of 
their country, and a high sense of honour, will enable 
them to perform. But of our volunteers, how small 
a part are really effective, in the proper sense of that 
term ; and how many are from age, bodily constitu- 
tion, and fixed habits of life, utterly unfit for the du- 
ties of the field. 

Far indeed is it from my intention, to detract from the 
merits of these corps, or to deny their high utilityand im- 
portance. I would most anxiously maintain, were it ne- 
cessary, that they are essential means for the perma- 
nent safety of the country; and, without believing that 
any member of the present cabinet ever entertained, 
or meant to express, a contemptuous estimate of their 
value, I lament that such an idea has unfortunately 
gone abroad. 

But it is one thing to applaud an institution in the 
abstract, and another to say that it has attained to 
practical perfection ; or that it is equal to the import- 
ant purposes for which it was designed. They 
who regard the volunteer corps, as radically unfit 
for the defence of their conntry, aYe, I am per- 
suaded, greatly mistaken : but on the other hand, 
they who suppose this defensive force to be, in its pre- 
sent state, sufficient to insure our safety, are in a far 
more dangerous error. 

Various objections have been made to these esta- 

J3 



118 

blishrpents on the score of discipline, which no candid 
friend to them will affirm to be wholly unfounded. A 
still more serious objection, however, is that both their 
discipline and their effective force, is very generally 
and rapidly declining. But what has always appeared 
to me the chief defect in these corps, and the natural 
source of their decay, is a vice in their original con- 
stitution i I mean the indiscriminate mixture of men 
of widely different ages, and bodily habits, of which 
they are composed. 

Of all qualities in a soldier, his physical powers are 
of the greatest importance; but more especially, when 
his services are likely to be of a severe and laborious 
kind ; and still more, when he is suddenly to be called 
from the habits of civil life, into actual service. 
I would by no means undervalue the effects of pa- 
triotic and military ardour, with which our volunteers, 
if opposed to an invading enemy, would, I doubt not 
be generally inspired. But though the body in suchj 
cases, may be powerfully sustained by the mind, there 
are limits to the possible effect of such an influence ; 
and the qualities of the inferior part of our natures 
will unavoidably determine, in a great degree, our 
powers of military exertion. It is not in the love of 
country, long to sustain under the sense of cold, hunger, 
and fatigue, a man of tender habits, who has passed 
the prime of his life without any acquaintance with such 
hardships. 

That our volunteers must unavoidably be in such 
respects inferior to regular troops, is evident. They 
are not inured, by long and constant practice, to the 
duties of a* military life : they are, for the most part* 



:mtn unaccustomed' even to those laborious branches 
of civil industry, which are the best nurseries for the 
army ; and a great majority of them, are inhabitants 
of cities and large towns; men of domestic and seden- 
tary habits, to whom, even exposure to the inclemency 
of the weather, is a novelty, and a hardship. 

But though some of these disadvantages are inhe- 
rent in the very nature of the institution in question, 
they certainly now exist in a much greater degree than 
was necessary. We have more townsmen, and fewer vil- 
lagers, among our volunteers, than we might and 
should have had, but for causes to be presently noticed. 
We have also more men of the middle and upper ranks 
of society, in proportion to the hardy poor, than 
would have been inrolled, if those accidental causes had 
#o.t existed. 

The most unfortunate defect of all, however, an$ 
which greatly aggravates the effects of all the rest, is 
one which might most the easily have been prevented, 
and which still admits of a remedy. I mean the num* 
;ber of volunteers to be found in* every ,corj&, who have 
passed the meridian of life, or at least the age ofju- 
venile activity and vigour; and yet are jndiscrimi" 
nately mixed in the ranks, with much younger and 
abler associates. 

There is a seasonof life, when our ductile natures may 
be most easily bent to new habits j and when the elas- 
ticity of our muscles and animal spirits, is proof against 
the severest pressure. The same is the season, when 
brisk and vigorous action is luxury,, rather than fa- 
tigue; and what we are prone to, by the impulse of 
nature, even when duty points t© repose* The ima- 

h 



120 

gination also, is then powerfully impressed by the 
charms of novelty, in every employment ; and sym- 
pathies of all kinds, but especially in bold and ardent 
pursuits, have an irresistible influence. If man at 
such a season of life, has peculiar animal qualifications 
for a soldier, much more for a volunteer. If he be 
fit for gradual and permanent, much more for sud- 
den and unaccustomed, service in war; and especially 
if that service be of a brisk, active, and laborious kind. 

This season is early manhood. It may vary greatly as 
to age, in different constitutions ; but its limits, I con- 
ceive, are in general those of the French conscription ; 
namely, from eighteen to twenty-five. Some of these 
qualities, indeed, belong also toourboyhood, and some 
of them maybe unimpaired at thirty; but I speak of a 
time when the body has nearly, or fully acquired its ma- 
turity of strength, without any diminution of juvenile 
spirits, 

And here, though it may lead me to digress a little, 
and upon a subject with which I have no professional 
acquaintance, I will not suppress an opinion, that 
Frqnce owes her military success, in great measure > to 
the youth of her soldiers. 

It is a common remark, among those who have had 
the misfortune to see much of the French armies, that 
they are almost entirely composed of striplings, or very 
young men. And indeed how can the case be otherwise ? 
The slaughter of the sanguinary wars that have raged 
since 1792, must have left few veterans now remain- 
ing, who had served under their lawful sovereign ; and 
the requisitions, now called conscriptions, by which 
such immense armies have since been annually raised, 
kave not yet comprised a gingle man above the age of 



1*1 

twenty-five. Reckoning, therefore, from 1792, when 
that system began, the oldest soldier produced by it 
has not yet attained forty ; while an equal number at 
least, even of the earliest requisition, must be seven 
years younger. But supposing equal numbers to have 
been raised by it in each year, and to have comprised 
an equal proportion of men of every age, from eighteen 
to twenty-five, it would follow, that a majority of 
the whole, if living, would now be under twenty-nine. v 
The classes, however, who have served the greatest 
number of years, must, cceteris paribus, have been the 
most reduced by losses in action, and other casualties of 
war. Supposing, therefore, that in respect of natural 
causes of mortality, the chance of a youth of eighteen, to 
be found alive at the distance of fourteen years, only 
equals that of a man of twenty-five, it is plain that the 
surviving conscripts, of a later, must be far more numer- 
ous than those of an earlier requisition. 

Soldiers thus raised, have a right to be discharged, as I 
apprehend, when they have passed their twenty-fifth 
year j but since it is probably a right not much respected 
in time of war, I will take credit for little or no diminu- 
tion in the relative numbers of old and new conscripts 
on this account. 

But there remains another consideration of great im- 
portance; for it is evident, that each successive ccn^ 
scription, if impartially made, must include a larger 
proportion than the preceding one, of men in the earliest 
stage of the limited time of life. Supposing the last 
year's levy, for instance, to have been universal, there could 
be no. conscripts of the present year, returned emi- 
grants excepted, but such as have attained the age of 



■ics 

eighteen, since the conscription of 1805* a nd con- 
sequently, whatever portion of the people may be ac- 
tually conscribed, unless there be a partial ex* 
emption of the younger classes, which we have no 
reason whatever to suppose, each successive levy under 
this system, while it is annually used, must produce a 
much greater proportion of soldiers of eighteen, than 
«*f any other age. But eighteen is probably found an 
age too early, in many -constitutions, for maturity of 
growth and strength ; and therefore I presume it is* 
that in the last conscription of 80,000 men, for service 
in the present year, Napoleon has required that they 
shall all be of the age of twenty, and no more. 

On the whole, it seems not too much to conclude, that 
while the French army comprises very few soldiers who 
have attained forty, agreat majority of the 600,000 men* 
of which it is said to consist, are under twenty-five. 

Unless this extraordinary circumstance in the con- 
stitution of the armies of France, can be regarded as 
of a neutral or indifferent kind in war, it must be ad- 
mitted to have favoured thc-ir success ; for we hav« 
wonders enough to account for in their atchievements, 
without supposing that so striking a physical peculia- 
rity, was a disadvantage to be overcome. 

In this respect, the composition of every army which 
they have conquered, has been very different. The 
Austrian and Prussian battalions, which they have so 
strangely overwhelmed, the latter especially, contained 
a large proportion of old or middle aged soldiers. Per- 
haps, with equal numbers to the French, they could 
have counted twice as many years. The same, I appre- 



123 

bend, has been the case with such Russian armies, as 
have been chiefly engaged in these disastrous wars. 

The British army, from its fatal employment in the 
West Indies, has, alas ! not much longevity. A great 
part of it, has been formed during the last and present 
war, by very young recruits; and this circumstance 
also seems, when we regard the success of our arms, 
rather to support, than oppose, the conclusion to which 
I reason. I am far from ascribing indeed, to the youth 
of our soldiery alone, the failure of the enemy's fortune 
in the field, when opposed to British battalions. The 
gallantry of our officers and troops, and their hereditary 
sense of superiority to our insolent neighbours, might 
sufficiently account for it. But the army of Egypt, 
I apprehend, had but a small proportion of veterans in 
the ranks ; and the brave corps which so well sustained 
the military fame of their country at Maida, were chiefly 
composed of very young men. 

I am aware that it has the air of heresy in the science 
of war, to regard men who have but just emerged 
from boyhood, as an overmatch for veterans in the field. 
But if there be any truth in the preceding observations, 
this is not merely an opinion; it is a fact; and the busi- 
ness is, not to prove, but explain it. The young sol- 
diery of France, have in fact, triumphed over the veteran 
troops of their continental enemies. 

Innumerable attempts have been made at different 
times, and in reference to the various disasters of our 
Allies^ to account for this uniform success of the enemy, 
by the treason of generals, the disaffection of troops, 
and by accidents of various kinds ; but the solutions- 
are all eithejr inadequate^ or highly incredible; as well 



124 

as inconsistent with each other. Let tis try then whe- 
ther this very disparity of age between the soldiers of 
the contending armies, may not, in spite of old re- 
ceived notions, go far to explain the whole. 

Buonaparte, and other French generals, have re- 
peatedly spoken of the old tactics with contempt ; and 
it is at length become fashionable, with those who 
have, as well as with those who have not, some little 
knowledge of the subject, to cry down the old art of 
war. We begin to look back on Marlborough and 
Turenne as drivellers, who did nothing great in com- 
parison with what they might have effected ; but spent 
half an age, in slowly attaining, what ought to have 
been the work of a month. If, however, Marlborough 
or Turenne had commanded the youthful revolutionary 
armies of France, I cannot help thinking that they 
would have discovered the same new methods of war- 
fare, which so many French generals have practised, 
and used. them with equal success: for great comman- 
ders in all ages, seem to have been men of strong natu- 
ral parts, who triumphed, not by a pedantic adhe- 
rence to established rules ; but by the application of 
plain common sense, to the circumstances in which 
they were placed. It was, I conceive, not difficult to 
discover that the cautious and dilatory system formerly 
in vogue, was not fit for those inexhaustible mul- 
titudes of ardent young soldiers, whom France in the 
delirium of her enthusiasm for liberty, poured forth 
upon her enemies. 

The situation of the Republic, at the first, prescribed 
impetuous and decisive operations; and what was per- 
haps then but a daring and necessary effort, became 

5 



1U 

afterwards from its signal success, an established new 
system of war. Without depreciating the value of the 
discovery, it may with probability be supposed to have 
been, like many others of great importance, the result 
of accident, rather than design. Buonaparte's genius 
may possibly be as great as his fortune; but the new 
tactics, were Moreau's before they were Buonaparte's, 
and Pichegru's before they were Moreau's. 

All I wish to establish however is, that the success 
of this new system, has been promoted by the peculiar 
and advantageous circumstance in question, the youth 
of the French soldiers. A Frenchman, from the viva- 
city of his nature, has a juvenile impetuosity even in 
sober manhood. How much more when sent into 
the field between 18 and 25. With such a soldiery it 
might have been difficult to sit down to sieges and 
blockades; or cautiously to watch the movements of 
an enemy, as on a chess board, through a tedious cam- 
paign : but it was easy to overwhelm him at once, by a 
rapid march, and an impetuous attack. 

One of the greatest advantages of this grand physical 
distinction, is the capacity which young men have of sus- 
taining for a long time, with far less inconvenience than 
their seniors, an excess of violent exercise; and of this 
Buonaparte has availed himself beyond any of his pre- 
decessors. It is perhaps the chief source of his supe- 
riority to them in brilliant atchievements. His asto- 
nishing march over Mount Cenis into the plains of 
Italy ; his still more rapid advance from Boulogne to 
Bavaria and Ulm ; what were they, but wonders per- 
formed by youthful alacrity and vigour. His enemies 
were taken by surprise, and ruined, because they thought 



12ff 

such marches impossible ; and so they would really 
have been, to elderly or middle aged soldiers. 

By the same means, he has been able to make the 
fruits of a victory decisive, and the rout of an enemy 
irretrievable, beyond ail former example. Not to men- 
tion the celerity of his movements after the capitula- 
tion of Ulm, the late unprecedented fate of the Prus- 
sian army, subsequent to the battle of Auerstadt, affords 
too strong an instance of it. 

I have already touched on that painful subject; and 
if more need be offered to illustrate, the physical dispa- 
rity between the pursuers and the pursued, let General 
Blucher's narrative be read. He does not indeed re- 
mark, that his veteran soldiers were opposed to much 
younger men ; but the remark is needless. We find, 
that though traversing a friendly country, his soldier s 
were fainting with fatigue and hunger, and dropping, by 
fifties at a time, on the road ; so that at last he brought 
but a remnant of his original force in miserable plight to 
Lubeck ; while his more vigorous pursuers, followed close 
at his heels, passed as enemies through the same country 
which he had previously exhausted, arrived in full force, 
almost at the same moment with him on the coast of the 
Baltic, and in such unimpaired spirits, as to storm his 
batteries before they halted. The contradictions pub- 
licly given to this narrative by the enemy, certainly de^ 
serve little confidence ; otherwise they would greatly 
strengthen these remarks. But thus much cannot be 
denied — that the French had marched as many miles as 
the Prussians — that they must have set off with as little 
food, or else have been more encumbered on their way * 
and that a friendly territory, in which General Blucher, 



U7 

by spreading his* army over a circumference of thirty 
miles, could hardly obtain refreshment, could not a few 
hours after, have yielded greater relief to his enemies. 
At the same time the brave old General speaks, in the 
highest terms, of the resolution and patience of his 
troops. They did therefore all that they could. 

Something, I admit, should be allowed in this case, 
for the difference between the elation of victory, and 
She dejection of defeat ; but no man of 50, or even 40, 
who remembers his own bodily powers and spirits at 
z$, will be at a loss for a more adequate cause of this 
disparity, between the conscripts of Buonaparte, and 
the veterans of Frederick the Great. 

How different was the case with Moreau ; in his 
famous retreat before the Archduke Charles, in the 
campaign of 1796 ? He had to make his way through 
a hostile country, from the Danube to the Rhine, by a 
most difficult route of three hundred miles in length ; 
and yet effected it with so little loss, that the retreat 
was held to be more glorious than a conquest. Yet 
nothing is recorded of that exploit, that may not be 
fully explained by the same bodily superiority of his 
troops. He made forced marches of such length, and 
with such extreme perseverance, as baffled all the ef- 
forts of his enemies. 

Whether, therefore, in advancing or retreating, our 
enemies triumph by the juvenility of their soldiers. 
Their innovations on the old system of war, are calcu- 
lated to make the most of this advantage. They have 
wisely turned war, from a minuet into a race ; for they 
are sure that their veteran enemies, will first be out of 
|reath, 

3 



Nor is the same superiority unfelt in the field of 
battle. No man has as much active or animal courage 
at 45, as he had at 21. The passive courage of the 
veteran, it is true, may be increased, rather than 
diminished by experience ; that is, he may stand longer 
motionless under a cannonade, or the fire of musquetry $ 
and be more coolly obedient to orders, and observant 
of discipline. Hence also the old tactics suited him 
perhaps better than the new. But now, the steadiness ot 
troops alone will not suffice ; their strength, and spirits* 
are tried to the uttermost, by brisk, persevering, and 
reiterated attacks ; new troops are brought up 
from distant quarters, with such rapidity, that they 
arrive before they were known to be on the march ; 
and the bayonet, is employed with a frequency former- 
ly unknown. Sometimes, it is brought into action 
late in a hard fought day •> and when a line of steady 
veterans are already fatigued, and nearly exhausted, by a 
long continued engagement, they are suddenly assailed 
with that formidable weapon. At the battle of Marengo, 
victory long hovered in suspence ; and the Austrians, 
after many hours of brave and arduous conflict, were 
about, perhaps, to reap the fruits of their persever- 
ance, when the same young soldiers, who had lately 
rushed from Dijon across the Alps, charged them 
vigorously with the bayonet, and the fate of Europe 
was decided. 

To what extent these reflections are liable to contro- 
versy, I know not. They seem to me, to rest upon 
plain reason, and acknowledged fact. — But, if any maa 
doubt, whether the youth of a soldier be a great 
advantage under the new system of war ? when he is 



I2Q 

opposed to a well disciplined veteran ; at least it wil 
be universally admitted, that the young are fair better 
qualified to form new habits, and sustain unaccustom- 
td hardships, than the old. There is in this view, if in 
no other, an undeniable importance in the age of our 
volunteers. A man who has been in the army thirty 
years, may be as hardy, though not so a. ile or vigor- 
ous, as his younger comrade ; but if two men, of dif- 
ferent ages are to be taken at once from the tender 
habits of domestic life, and exposed to the toils of a 
campaign, who can hesitate to say, that the younger, 
is likely best to sustain the trying effects of the tran- 
sition. 

Let it be fairly considered, how extreme the contrast 
would be, between the duties to which a volunteer, 
in the event of invasion, would be summoned ; and 
the ordinary habits, of a man who has always resided 
in the bosom of his family, in a commercial Town, 
or City. Even to young men, if used to the com- 
forts commonly enjoyed by the middle ranks of 
Englishmen, the change would be painful enough ; 
but to sustain, for a few days or weeks, hardships 
before unknown, would be to them, if not an easy, 
at least a practicable task. Not so to a man who 
has passed his prime, without having ever learned 
to bear the inconveniences of wet clothes, bad lodgings, 
watching, fatigue, and the other sufferings incident 
to a military life. The sense of honour, or fear 
$f shame, might indeed goad him on, to endure them 
for a while : but be would soon be reduced to an ab- 
solute incapacity pf further perseverance. He might 
continue his march, of stand underarms a second day, 

K 



ISO' 

©r a third perhaps ; but at length would be obliged!; 
however reluctantly, to ask leave to retire, or sink 
under the weight of his sufferings. 

Nor would the loss of service of such feeble soldiers,, 
be the only ill consequence of their involuntary failure. 
The years, and the situations in life, which unfit them 
for active service, naturally give them more influence in 
the corps to which they belong, than younger mem- 
bers y and' an example, the necessity of which might 
however painfully felt by themselves, be equivocal in- 
the eyes of others, would have a contagious effect. 
They would at first retard the corps by their langour, 
and afterwards dishearten it by their defection; 

On the whole therefore, I conclude, that those truly 
patriotic and valuable establishments, cur Volunteer 
corps, are as now constituted, from the ages and 
confirmed habits of many of their members, as well 
as from some existing defects of a remediable kind, 
which have been noticed by others, a species of force 
not well qualified to repel, by laborious and persevering 
efforts, the impetuous armies of France- 
After all, have v/e effective soldiers, regular or irregu- 
lar, sufficient in point of numbers, to make the country 
perfectly safe against a powerful invasion ? 

The volunteers? much more than the regulars, are 
dispersed in every part of the island; and no great pro* 
portion of them could be convened at any given pointy 
soon enough to stop the progress of an enemy, who^ 
might land on our eastern or southern coast* 
before he could become master of London. Besides,} 
the defects which I have just been stating, would be* 
found peculiarly fatal, if such troops were to be marchecL 



131 

from distant parts of the island, immediately prior to 
their being brought into action. 

Of the volunteers now enrolled throughout the 
kingdom, a great many are certainly, in point of discipline 
as well as bodily qualifications, unfit for actual service; 
and a large proportion even of those who are returned as 
effective, will not be found so upon trial ? — It is too 
common, I fear, to keep every member on the effective 
list, who has once exercised with the corps in battalion 
upon an inspection or general muster; though perhaps, 
he never was perfect even in his manual exercise, and 
has forgot the little he once learned of it. These un- 
diciplined effectives too, are, it is probable, increasing 
very rapidly, in almost every corps not receiving pay, 
though their nominal force remains undiminished. 

Without enlarging on this subject, I will hazard an 
opinion that there are not 50,000 volunteers in the 
whole island, now ready to take the field, and fit to act 
against an enemy; yet were there six times as many, 
it might be difficult to draw together two armies of 
that amount, in time to make a first, and second stand^ 
for the existence of their Country. Supposing a battle 
to be lost, and London in the hands of the invaders, 
the subsequent junction of volunteers who are scattered* 
over the whole face of the island, would be no easy work* 
With a most active and energetic enemy in the centre, 
the communications between the east and the west, 
the north and the south, of the island, would not be 
long open. The hope therefore of further resistance, 
would depend, not merely on our having enough of 
effective volunteers, to form a powerful reserve, but on 
their being sufficiently numerous, to make head in 

K z 



132 

different parts of the country at the same moment, 
and fight their way in large bodies to a general rendez- 
vous, though opposed by powerful detachments. 

If it be objected, that these calculations are founded 
on an assumption that we should betaken by surprise ; 
I answer, that our notice of an approaching invasion 
would probably be extremely short, and quite insuffi- 
cient for the purpose of embodying our volunteers 
throughout the island, prior to the actual descent. 
The means of suddenly embarking a large army at 
Boulogne, are continually at the enemy's command. 
The only requisite for invasion therefore, which, unless 
he trusts to the flotilla alone, he must provide by new 
expedients, is a convoying fleet : and, this, as has been 
already shewn, he may very possibly obtain by a pre- 
concerted junction of different squadrons off that or 
some neighbouring port. But the only probable means 
of so obtaining a temporary superiority in the channel 
are so far from being inconsistent with secrecy, tha, 
they necessarily imply that quality ; nor would the 
-'Opportunity when found, admit of any delay. It 
seems not unlikely therefore, that the same day would 
bring us advice that the blockade of Boulogne was 
raised by a strong hostile fleet, and that the troops 
were beginning to embark : nor is it impossible, that 
the ilotiila might be already on our coast, before the 
danger could be announced by government, at any 
great distance from London. 

What then is to be done in order to prepare effectually 
against the danger of such a surprise, with our present 
means of interior defence ? Arc the volunteers to be call- 
ed from their homes, and marched into distant parts of 



133 

the kingdom, there to be formed into armies, on every- 
alarm ? The repetition of such costly and vexatious 
means of preparation, would soon exhaust both the 
purse and the patience of the country. Besides, as 
the danger must always be imminent as long as a 
large army is encamped within sight of our coasts, 
and the most specious indications of an imme- 
diate intention to embark, could be easily made, th e 
enemy, if he found he could reduce us to such costly 
defensive expedients, would take care we should have 
alarms enough to harrass our volunteers prior to an ac- 
tual attempt. It is plain then, that forces which are to be 
assembled from many different districts of the kingdom, 
at the expence of every branch of civil industry, as 
well as of domestic comfort, must probably be, for the 
most part, unembodied when the enemy is on his way 
to our shores. 

What is the practical conclusion from these remarks ? 
That the volunteers ought to be disbanded, or discou- 
raged ? — far from it — that their numbers ought to be 
very greatly increased, and their discipline improved. 
But that if this cannot be effected, some other means 
must be found, to cover the country more abundantly 
with armed citizens, fully prepared for its defence. 

The danger of a surprise will obviously be less formi- 
dable, the mischief of losing a battle less irreparable, 
the power of assembling new armies even after the loss 
of the capital, less difficult, in proportion as our vo- 
lunteers, or other defensive forces, become more abun- 
dant. But there is another consideration of great 
weight, which we need not disdain to learn from 
Buonaparte. In a late decree or proclamation for mul- 



194 

tiplying still further his forces by new conscription*, 
he observes, that while the objects of the war are better 
secured by increasing the amount of the forces em- 
ployed in it, war itself becomes less sanguinary, to the 
party who has a great superiority in numbers ; resist- 
ance being speedily subdued, and the horrors of a 
long protracted contest avoided. The justice of the 
doctrine, as applied to his own enterprizes, may indeed 
well be doubted ; because he extends his operations, 
and his ambitious designs, in proportion to the mag- 
nitude of the force which he progressively acquires. 
But if applied to a war, the field and object of which 
are limited, and especially to a war of interior defence, 
the remark is self-evidently true. The greater there- 
fore the amount of our defensive force, regular or irre- 
gular, the less of British blood will be shed in the event 
of an invasion, while the dreadful issue of a foreign yoke 
will be the more certainly averted. 

Besides, a feeble, and barely adequate preparation, 
though it might serve to repel, would not prevent inva- 
sion ; and our country would be redeemed at a painful 
cost, though far inferior to the unspeakable value of 
the pledge, if we had to combat a powerful French 
^my on British ground, with the arms of our volun- 
eers. But if the people were generally armed in de- 
fence of the country, few or none might have to bleed 
for it. The enemy, in all probability, would not dare 
to assail, on their own soil, a whole nation of soldiers. 
But if he should act with such temerity, he would be 
repulsed with an overwhelming energy, that would for 
ever preclude a renewal of the mischievous attempt. 

War too itself might be shortened by such decisive 



135 

preparations. The enemy seeing that we are not to be 
•conquered, might be glad to give us peace': not such 
a peace as would make him speedily master of our fate; 
not a peace by which he would add the sea to the 
shores of his tremendous dominion in the old world, 
by ceding to us another colony or two in the new; 
but a peace of real security., and genuine honour : a 
peace by which, in some degree at least, the sad destiny 
of our allies might be repaired, and the bulwarks of 
Europe restored. At present, if we are not strong- 
enough at home for a war, much less so for a peace, 
with Buonaparte. If our interior force gives no ade- 
quate protection against him during the present de- 
pression of the French marine, where will be our se- 
curity on its restitution? and if we are now not suffi- 
ciently prepared to repel invasion, after three years no- 
tice of the danger, how much less should we be so on 
a sudden recommencement of war, of which the ap- 
pearance of a French fleet on our shores, would, per- 
haps, give the first intimation., 

Were there no other argument against making ,peace 
atthis juncture, a decisive one might be found in the 
present inadequate and declining state of our domestic 
defence. To improve it when the dangers of war shall 
be supposed to have subsided, will neither be so easy 
in respect of the feelings of the people, nor so conci- 
liatory in regard to those of a just reconciled enemy, 
-as to be a work fitter for that period, than the present. 

If, after all, any reader be sanguine enough to think 
that we have already enough of military force for our 
protection, let him compare the fatal consequences of 
a mistake on that side, with the iaconveniencies of 

i 



136 

superfluous preparations. Where the evil to be risqued 
is infinite, no preventive means can be excessive, which 
may contribute to lessen the danger. But I am per- 
suaded, that a great majority of the public will re- 
quire no arguments to convince them that our in- 
terior defensive force ought to be improved. They 
will feel more difficulty perhaps on the subject ta 
which I next proceed, the means of improving it. 

ToaJvance the discipline, meliorate the physical cha- 
racter, and enlarge the number, of our volunteer corps, 
are beyond doubt, the best defensive expedients we can 
possibly resort to, if such improvements can be made. 
That they are in a financial, commercial, and constitu- 
tional view, more desirable than a large increase of our 
regular army, can, I presume, be doubted by nohody ; 
and in a military estimate, they are, I am confident, 
liable to no sound objections, but such as may be re- 
moved. 

To suppose that these patriotic bands are not capable 
of being made fit for the secure defence of their Country, 
because they can have no actual employment in war 
till the event of an invasion, is to adhere to old theories, 
in contempt of the most decisive experience. The 
French officers, are said to express astonishment at our 
having a diftidence in our volunteers on this exploded 
principle ; and so they reasonably may ; for by whom 
have the most brilliant exploits of their own cam- 
paigns been performed, bnt troops that had never seen 
service ? \Ve ourselves, however, might have learnt to 
correct the old prejudice earlier, by our experience in 
America; and what a glorious refutation was lately 
given, of it by the j§ftb Regiment at Ma id a ? ;' 



137 

The brave young Scotchmen who composed that 
corps, were raised in 1805, and sent to the Mediterra- 
nean in September of that year. Till they landed in 
the Bay of St. Euphemia from Sicily, on the first of 
July last, they had never seen a musket-shot fired in 
actual service ; and yet they confounded by their 
steadiness, as well as by their intrepidity and ardour, 
the bravest battalions of France.* 

* The following is an extract of a letter, from one of the 
gallant young officers by whom this corps was raised, to his 
father a respectable gentleman in this country. 

r< The light infantry battalion, commanded by Lieutenant 
,( Colonel Kempt, the 78th, Highlanders, and the 8ist Regiment 
*' led the attack. We formed line, at about a mile in front of the 
" enemy, and advanced in ordinary time, keeping an excellent 
'! line. When arrived within a quarter of a mile of the enemy, 
** we perceived them in three large solid columns, with about 
** 300 cavalry on their right. They advanced, halted and de- 
'« ployed into line with much seeming regularity and steadiness. 
** After a halt of about five minutes they advanced with drum* 
u . beating and loud shouting, (the latter is an expedient by which the 
French attempt to intimidate their enemies, at the* critical 
moment of an attack, and often with great success,) «« and at 
** 200 yards distance, the firing commenced on our right, by the 
*' light infantry battalion. The 78th at the same time advanced, 
". but without firing, until within 100 yards of them ; when we 
'* commenced and received a heavy fire for a quarter of an hour. 
ft The enemy then retired : and we charged them four times, 
** but they never would look us in the face, — they fled about half a. 
*' it.ile, and we halted to breathe a little. 

" By this time, the 78th had advanced considerably beyond the 
" corps on their right and left. The enemy perceiving our sitita- 
•* tion, brought forward their cavdry to charge us, but they could 
'• not make them advance. We were soon supported by the light 
" infantry battalion, and 81st regiment. At eight o'clock, a large 
" column of the enemy was perceived on the left fiank of the fir^t 

5 



138 

But the troops who have thus immortalised their 
first attempts m arms, have not been men who 

e( line, they having out flanked us by marching along a hollow 
<k way to our left ; but the second line had perceived this manceu- 
** vre, and were prepared for them. Our regiments individually 
t{ charged ; and after three hours very hard fighting, the enemy 
*' gave way in all quarters. The 78th and Light Infantry cou- 
*' tinned the pursuit, until near two o'clock .-^-The French had 
*' about 8000 men in the field, and the British army did not exceed 
*' 4795 rank and file, as vgu will perceive by the annexed accurate 
*' statement/' 

" The Commander in chief, and the whole army, have bestow- 
** edon the 78th the greatest praise, for their brave conduct ; far 
u indeed, nothing on earth, could possibly resist the determined braver^ 
*< of our dear lads ; nxho repeatedly charged, driving every thing before 
" them. The French troops were mostly Light Infantry, — two 
sc regiments of them were favourite corps of Buonaparte. 
** These regiments behaved extremely well, and did not retire 
< c till nearly the one half were bayoneted." 

0/9,50 young men, of whom the 78th consisted, more than the 
half were under twenty years of age ; and further extracts^ of the 
same letter, might serve to shew the importance of that quality 
on which I have before remarked, the youth of soldiers, especially 
in. services of hardship and fatigue. During five days preceding 
an attack in which these youths displayed such extraordinary 
ardour, they were without cover, without any change of cloaths, 
and without any better lodging than the bare ground, r * wemake . 
however," adds the writer, " snug little places, with bushes, and 
weeds, and I assure you sleep most comfortably" During two 
days alsothey had very little food. Let the Volunteer of 40 or 50 
consult his own experience of the bodily effects of such*hardshipo 
as he has ever known, and then suppose himself to have been in the 
78th regiment, first sharing the hardships here mentioned for 
five days, then marching and fighting, from one in the morning, 
till two o'clock in the afternoon ; and say what would have been 
his probable share of strength and animation in the battle. If 
this case proves that the country may be safely intrusted to young^ 
soldiers', it proves no less clear Jydiat they should be young men. 



139 

at the middle period of life, or when they began 
to feel the infirmities of declining years, have been 
transformed at once from citizens into soldiers ^ 
nor have they been taught by halves, those essential 
though soon acquired arts, of using their arms, 
and performing military movements. Their want of 
experience in war, and of long habit in the exer- 
cises of the camp, have been their only defects; but 
then these also are the only defects inherent in the 
constitution of the British volunteers j and while such 
defenders of their country can be found with the na- 
tural requisites of the soldier, I see not why they should 
not be enabled to rival, if they found an opportunity 
in England, the heroes of Jemappe, and of Maida. 

But how, it may be asked, are we to improve the 
physical character and discipline of our Volunteers, and 
at the same time increase their numbers ? In order 
to answer that question, I must look back to the 
original constitution of these corps ; and point out 
the sources of those defects which are at present to be 
found in them. 

If the youth of any country are the fittest to defend 
it in war, they are also the most likely to become 
its voluntary champions. The same feelings which 
qualify them for soldiers, impel them to be the most 
forward in the pursuits of fame ; and especially of mili- 
tary glory. But our Volunteer corps are of two class- 
es; the one formed prior to the training act of 1803, 
the other subsequent to that period * and both were 
composed of a pretty large mixture of middle aged 
and elderly men, as well as men of delicate habits, 
from artificial eauses# The former, were chiefly en- 



140 

rolled in troublesome times, with a view to assisting the 
civil power in the suppression of popular insurrections; 
a purpose in which men above the lower class, and 
who had passed the prime of life, were led to en- 
gage, chiefly for the sake of promoting the public 
object by their influence and example -, considering 
that as there was no danger of their being called 
into any service far beyond the limits of the town 
in which they resided, they should be exposed to no 
very inconvenient or laborious duties. Yet when 
the Country began to be thought in danger from with- 
out, such men felt an honorary objection to retiring 
from the corps in which they were enrolled, and to the 
formation of which they had contributed. 

The same was a frequent case, in several corps raised 
during the last war, under an alarm of invasion, but 
whose offers of service were then restricted to particu- 
lar districts. 

The great a?ra however of Volunteer institutions was 
in the year 1803, when the act for the defence of the 
Country, usually called the Levy in Mass Act, held 
forth to every male between the ages of 17 and 53, the 
alternative of either serving in a volunteer corps of his 
own choice, or being trained with men of all ranks, in 
a compulsory way, in the parish to which he. belonged. 

Regard to personal credit, ease, and convenience, 
now conspired with a sense of honour and patriotism, 
to induce gentlemen, and men above the labouring 
classes, to form volunteer associations, or to en,ter into 
those which were already formed, in the neighbourhood, 
of their respective abodes. With many, the very cir- 
cumstances which made them unfit for soldiers, were 



141 

inducements to such conduct; for if their constitutions 
were delicate, or incapable of bearing fatigue,, they 
naturally expected more consideration and indulgence 
when commanded by, and associated with, their equals 
and friends, than in the ranks of a parochial mass* 
As volunteers too, they had a certainty of the choice 
of good weather, and convenient hours* for the 
business of the drill. They knew indeed, that by 
volunteering, they might place themselves in a liabi- 
lity to be called out into the field in the event of 
invasion, when perhaps the latter classes, to which they 
would have belonged in the mass, might not have 
been put in requisition; but the nearer and more 
certain inconveniences of the drill, were more formida- 
ble, than the distant and precarious hardships of ser- 
vice against invaders ; a service too under which men 
of right feelings, expected that their bodies would be 
powerfully sustained by their minds. The expectation 
was in some degree just ; though knowledge of military 
duties, and experience of bodily hardships in general, 
had not taught them its proper limits. Besides, the levy 
in mass act, placed men under fifty, who were unmar- 
ried and had no children less than ten years old, in the 
second class or requisition. These therefore, very littje 
increased their chance of actual service, by enrolling 
themselves as volunteers. 

Fashion, and delicacy, soon inclined gentlemen the 
same way, who might have made a different choice ; 
for it was perceived, that those who waited for the 
operation of the Act, would find few of their 
own rank in life to keep them in countenance, and 
would have scarcely any other associates in the parish 



framed bands, than menial servants and labourers* 
Other gentlemen, very unfit by years and constitutions, 
for military duties, but who had long before inrolled 
themselves in volunteer corps formed at much earlier 
periods, and when their constitutions, perhaps, were 
equal to those very limited services for which they en- 
gaged, felt an honorary repugnance to withdrawing, 
when their corps, at a period of public danger, ex- 
tended its offer of service, as required under the 
Mass Act, to any part of the realm. 

The consequence of these concurring causes was, 
that a number of volunteers, more than sufficient to 
satisfy the wishes of government at that period, wa$ 
speedily enrolled ; but that the proportion of towns- 
men, in comparison with the more hardy inhabitants 
of the country, of middle aged or elderly men, in pro- 
portion to the young, of tender or valetudinary persons 
in proportion to the robust and healthful, and of gentry, 
or men above the lowest class, in comparison with the 
peasantry and workmen, was unnaturally and unfortu* 
nately great. Almost the only volunteer corps composed 
wholly, or chiefly of men who were corporeally fit to make 
good soldiers, were those which were put upon pay by 
private subscriptions. The common people, having no 
apprehension of being worse situated, than others, by 
the operation of the act, had scarcely any other motive 
for volunteering. They were, nevertheless, by the per- 
suasion of their superiors, and by the prevailing argu-^ 
ment, that they soon must be drilled, either by com- 
pulsion or choice, beginning to come forward in many 
places, when it was unfortunately announced, that vo- 
lunteers enough had beer* found for the defence of the 



143 

country, and that the Mass Act would not be en- 
forced. 

I have ever regarded it as a great and most unfor- 
tunate error on this occasion, that no attention was 
paid to age, rank, or situation in life ; but to numerical 
sufficiency alone. It was an error, however, which 
took its rise in the Defence Act itself, which, in its 
estimate of the sufficiency of a volunteer force,, totally* 
disregarded such differences; even that most important 
one, the distinction between youth and age, in a new 
soldier. When a number of volunteers, between 
seventeen and fifty-five years old, equal to three- 
fourths of the number of men in the first class in any 
district, should be actually enrolled, the King was em- 
powered to suspend, in such district, the operation of 
the Act ; so that a volunteer of fifty-five, was regarded 
as an adequate substitute for a man between seventeen 
and thirty. It was thought, perhaps, that volunteers 
might be safely left to appreciate for themselves their 
natural capacity for service ; but this, under the arti- 
ficial circumstances which I have stated, was a fallaci- 
ous reliance ; and besides, if that great master in the 
school of nature, Shakspeare, may be trusted, men 
who are the fittest for military duties, are very com- 
monly the least willing to perform them. 

In fact, the grand principle which I am so anxious 
to recommend, that by which France has performed 
ner wonders in the two last wars, seems hardly to have 
had anyplace in our scheme of national defence. If 
the youth of men liable to service, determined their 
classification in the mass, it was in a compound ratio* 
®£ years and domestic relations. The reason of impo- 



144 

sifig less public burthens on a married man who has 
infant children, than on a bafrchelor, is obvious i but 
there is no case perhaps in which it has less force^ than 
in that of a public exigency* which demands our per- 
sonal service for the safety of the realm. At least, how-* 
ever, the public, was immoderately sacrificed to the 
private* consideration, when the unmarried man of fifty, 
was placed in the line of service, and of preparation for 
future service, before the married man of twenty or 
seventeen* 

At the same time, it is right to observe, that the 
probable increase of parochial burthens, was a conside- 
ration of some weight, which reasonably, perhaps, con^ 
trouled to a certain extent, the application of right 
military principles in a general law of that kind. But 
as far as the principle in question was adopted in the 
compulsory clauses of the Mass Bill, it should clearly 
have been extended to the commutation to be accepted 
in volunteer service. Returns, therefore, should have 
been required, of the ages of the men who had 
offered to enroll themselves ; and individuals of the first 
class, should not have been exempted from the compul- 
sory effect of the act, unless a competent number of 
men of the same preferable description, offered to serve 
as volunteers. It was not just or politic, that single 
men of twenty or twenty-five, should be exempted 
from the inconveniences of the training plan, and left 
in a state of unfitness to serve their country in time of 
need, because married men, of forty-five or fifty, were 
more prompt in tiheir offers of service. 

The course that was taken, has not only given us 
a body of volunteers, inferior in natural qualifications, to 



145 

that which we might have possessed ; but has thereby 
very greatly tended to prevent the attainment of such 
perfection in discipline, as these defenders of their 
country might have acquired ; and to occasion that de- 
cline, both in discipline and effective numbers, 
which we have now so much cause to lament. Had 
young men only been enrolled in the volunteer corps, 
youthful emulation would have led them to make greater 
exertions to become expert in their military exercises ; 
and this spirit would not have been checked by the in- 
conveniencies of fatigue or bad weather. " You can- 
not imagine," (wrote a young volunteer of Ireland, to 
his friend, when on service in the rebellion there) " what 
fine sport we have had ; we have never halted long in 
the same place, but have been marching continually 
in all weathers, and slept on the ground all night." 
The imagination of youth, is an alembic which can ex- 
tract spirits, even from the cold dregs cf discomfort. 
The lighter motives for volunteering also, are pe- 
culiarly felt by young men; but I will not particularise 
them, lest I should seern to detract from that manly, 
generous, and patriotic spirit, by which the defenders 
of their country are chiefly actuated. In all these re- 
spects, the volunteer of forty-five is a most unequal 
associate for his comrade of twenty The stimulus is 
less with him, the sacrifices infinitely greater. The 
one returns from the drill, or the parade, fatigued and 
disordered, by a portion of exercise, by which the other is 
rather enlivened. The senior, too surely anticipates a cold 
or rheumatism, from the effects of wet deaths at a re- 

L 



us 

view; while the junior, laughs at his alarms, and escapes 
without any inconvenience. In short, nature, in the 
one case, inclines towards military service ; in the other 
case, strongly revolts from it. - 

If the elder, or less vigorous members of a corps, 
were induced, by these disparities, to retire, they 
would, at least, do no harm to the cause ; as the loss 
of such soldiers would be no subject of regret : but 
this, a false sense of honour, too generally prevents. 
Nor is it pleasant to a man's feelings, when he has been 
reported as an effective soldier, to request to be put 
on the non- effective list, while his health is apparently 
good. The common expedient, therefore, in such 
cases, has been, not to resign, but to withdraw more 
and more from the meetings of the corps ; till at length 
such members rarely attend at all, except on extraordinary 
occasions. Their example, naturally induces others who 
are less unfit for service, to be very lax in their attend- 
ance,when business or pleasure presents the smallest temp- 
tation to the fault ; and they ounger members at length 
think it quite allowable, and even fashionable, to be ab- 
sent from the ordinary musters. Meantime,emulationin 
military exercises, is greatly damped by the same cause. 
7'he musters and inspections are so thinly attended, 
that the corps can no longer make a respectable appear- 
ance on the parade; and those who are most expert in 
the usual evolutions, find their merited credit lost, 
through the aukwardness and mistakes of some of the 
. other members, who have been absent at previous meet- 
ings„ 



147 

Having assigned the causes of these great defects in 
the composition of the volunteer corps, it remains to 
suggest some practical means by which they may be 
removed. 

The chief defect of all, that which consists in the 
insufficiency of the numbers of volunteers of proper 
ages and habits, for our secure defence, can of course 
only be remedied by new enrollments. But the inter- 
mixture of young and old members, in existing corps, 
which is so great a drawback on the improvement of the 
former in discipline, and likely to ruin their efficiency 
in actual service, is an evil that may be easily corrected. 
Nothing more is necessary, than to distribute the 
members into two or three different classes, according 
to their different periods of life ; and then form them 
into first, second, and third battalions, first, second, 
and third companies, or still smaller divisions, propor- 
tionate to the strength of the corps. Young men would 
then have a fair opportunity to qualify themselves com- 
pletely for actual service, by exercising with men of 
their own age, without being retarded or embarrassed by 
theirless expert and less active seniors: and the first divi- 
sionsof many different corps, might be brigaded together, 
and taught the more complicated evolutions, on the largest 
scale, with the same important advantage. It would soon 
become discreditable among them to be lax in attend- 
ance, or to be found incorrect in the field ; and in the 
event of an invasion, an incorporation of the first bat- 
talions, companies, or divisions of the nearest volunteer 
corps, would oppose to the enemy an army of youthful 



148 

patriots, who, like the heroes of Maida, might in 
their first military essay, surpass his bravest troops. 

Though this new regulation in our volunteer corps, 
would improve their military character, it would not, 
I admit, immediately increase their numbers. It would 
nor, however, produce a contrary effect; for the 
younger members, would be bound more strongly than 
ever by a sense of honour, not to desert the cause of 
their country, when they found themselves peculiarly 
relied upon for its support; and placed, as it were, in 
the front line of our domestic defence. Their elders, 
on the other hand, relieved from an arduous and un- 
equal competition, and placed in their proper stations, 
would no longer have a satisfactory excuse for neglect- 
ing their assumed duties, and absenting themselves en-? 
tirely from the parade, They would prepare themselves 
better for the services to which they might be really 
equal. 

It might even not unreasonably be expected, that 
an improvement which would raise the reputation and. 
consequence of the volunteers in general, would 
progressively add to their numbers. 

While, however, I would thus cherish the sponta- 
neous contributions of military spirit, and patriotic sen- 
timent ; while I place the highest value on the volun- 
teer corps, and deprecate every thing which tends to 
their discouragement, I am far from thinking that he 
defence of England, at this awful conjuncture, should 
be left to their arms alone, limited as their efficient force 
now is/ in conjunction with our present establishment 



ug 

of militia and regular troops. There was a time, when 
by adopting the principles here recommended, we might 
have had volunteers enough, and of the very best quality. 
A new call from the government and the legislature, 
perhaps, might stillinduce the youth oi the country more 
generally to take up arms. But if not, such a call 
ought to be enforced by a new compulsory law. 

And here again, I will dare to censure both the great 
parties in the state: the administration for being con- 
tent with so very inadequate a measure as the existing 
Training Act ; the opposition, for condemning even 
that faint approach towards vigorous preparation, as a 
needless burthen on the people. 

While France, to use a phrase repeated so often that 
its awful import has ceased to be felt, is become a 
nation of soldiers, and. while she is assiduously im- 
pressing on all her new dominions in Europe, the same 
terrible character, it is truly amazing to hear British 
statesmen condemn, as oppressive or needless, the prin- 
ciple of compulsory service. But it is not less extra- 
ordinary, to find the application of that principle, li- 
mited to a service of twenty-four days in three years. 
Yet this is the utmost effect of the Training Act now 
in force. His Majesty's undoubted prerogative in time 
of actual invasion, is not indeed impaired by this law. 
He may then call for the full service of all his people : 
but in an age when military science has reached such. 
high perfection, and when all its instruments to be 
useful, must be prepared by previous discipline, this 
prerogative would be very ineffectual in the hour of 



159 

danger, if previous measures should not have paved th® 
way for its exercise. The legislature, therefore, steps in to 
prepare the people for performing the most important 
duty of their allegiance in time of need ; and sends them 
for twenty-four days to the drill, under parish con- 
stables ! ! Even this is to be done in so slow and pro- 
gressive a method, that unless the enemy shall be very 
dilatory indeed, he may sooner provide a marine for the 
invasion of England, than a tenth part of the people of 
England fit for military service, will be thus trained to 
receive him. 

It would be unjust to the minister who proposed this 
law, and who certainly possesses very rare and brilliant 
talents, not to observe, t&at he himself does not much 
rely on the effect of it for our security; but looks chief- 
ly to a regular army. — Where however, is that army at 
present ? I speak in reference, not to his plan for re- 
cruiting it, which seems to be built upon a wise as well 
as liberal principle; but to the disposition of its exist- 
ing force. If the regular army is to be enlarged, only 
to furnish means of foreign expeditions, and colonial 
conquests, 1 see not how the ablest plan for its exten- 
sion, can add to our domestic safety. 

Is it really then thought too much, that Englishmen 
should be obliged to prepare themselves effectually for 
the interior defence of their country ? In what nation, 
but our own, was it ever doubted, that free men are 
bound to serve the state with their arms, if necessary, 
even in foreign and distant war ? In the freest com- 
munities of Greece, such was the common duty of all 



m 

tlie citizens. At Rome, even in the utmost plenitude 
of her liberty, the free citizen who upon the census 
refused to take his military oath of inrollment, and to 
march wherever the Roman eagles led him, was sold 
into perpetual slavery; as unworthy to enjoy the free- 
dom of that country, for which he was unwilling to 
fight. 

By the happy effects of our insular situation, and 
maritime strength, aided by that inestimable modern 
defence of Europe, now so fatally subverted, the 
balance of power among nations, we have hitherto held 
in this respect, the richest inheritance of the earth, at 
the cheapest quit rent. Since the decay of the feudal 
system, and its military services, we have not been 
called upon to defend our freedom, perfect and unex- 
ampled, though it is, at the same cost which other 
nations have paid, for extending the power, and pro- 
moting the glory of their tyrants. 

These happy times however, are passed away, and a new 
state of things, more natural in a world of violence and 
wrong, prescribes to us new duties. Yet still we have 
our citadel amidst the waves ; and blessed be God, still 
possess our ascendancy in point of maritime power. We 
may yet therefore retain the best part of our singular ex- 
emption from the military duties of free men. Foreign 
conquest, is not necessary to our safety ; and therefore 
no Briton need be required to bear arms, except within 
the borders of his country. 

Are there any men among us who hold even this 
too much ? If so, they are unworthy of the national 

L 4 



1f| 

blessings they enjoy ; and especially unworthy of British' 
liberty. 

If such persons would do less for the service of their 
country, than every other free people have been con- 
tent to do in similar cases, let them regard with terror 
at least, if not with edification, the present example of 
France. The system began during her boasted liber- 
ty, is continued to this hour, and is not likely to be 
relinquished. There, every man is liable to serve who 
is of an age for military duties ; though those between 
1 8 and 25, alone, have yet been put in requisition* 
Is it fit, that Frenchmen should do and suffer more, to 
overthrow English liberty, than we to preserve it ? — 
And if such a humiliating contrast were decorous $ is 
it safe ? — It is impossible, that a nation so superior in 
energy to us, should long fail to reduce us to the bond- 
age we deserve ? No, — it is the general, the inevit- 
able course of human affairs, that a warlike people who 
sink the citizen in the soldier, must give law to their 
unarmed neighbours. Standing armies, however brave 
and faithful, will not long protect a community that 
trusts to them alone, against a nation of soldiers. 

We may welllament that such a military system as that 
of France, should have started up again in Europe ; and 
that the iron age of arms should revive in the 19th cen- 
tury ; but the regret is unavailing, — as our enemies have 
set this terrible example, we must follow it,or perish. Such 
would be the dilemma, even if these enemies, like the 
subverters of the Roman empire, were rude and uncivil- 
ized in comparison of ourselves, distant from us in 



153 

place 3 and inferior in extent of dominion ; how much 
more certainly so, when we have to conflict with a 
power, which rivals us in arts and arms, which 4ooks 
into our harbours, and which can now summon to the 
field, more than half perhaps, of the whole military 
force of Europe. 

But if any Briton can be unmoved with the dangers 
that menace his country, I beseech him to remember 
his own. He would not choose it seems to become a 
soldier, to avert all the horrors which would fall upon 
his native land, in the event of its conquest by France. 
But does he suppose, that in that event, he will be 
exempted from military service ? No, — he may rest 
assured, that he would soon be compelled to take up 
arms in the hard service of the conqueror. Si notes 
sanusy cur res hydropkus. If he will not march as a free 
man, he will have to march as a slave. 

Buonaparte, who has made Batavian and Italian 
conscripts, will infallibly make English conscripts too* 
whenever he has power. Is it supposed he will then 
have no more use for soldiers ? He will find it con- 
venient at least, to drain our captive land, of itt 
young and ardent spirits, as the most likely to break their 
chains. Nor will he want new fields of blood for them, 
wherein they may gather fresh laurels to adorn the brows 
of their master. The vast extent of Russia, may find 
long employment for his arms ; so may the distant 
regions of the new world ; and even Africa, which 
during the late peace, he formed the plan of colonizing 
and covering with military stations, might furnish a 



154 

copious drain for the juvenile conscripts of England 
Righteous governor of the world ! who knows, but it 
may be among the stores of thy retributory justice, 
already so conspicuous in our fate, that the youth of 
England shall be led captive into that very land, whose 
hapless children we now cruelly exile and enslave ! 

That our enemy aims at conquering the whole world 
is now abundantly evident. He will long therefore, 
have new battles to fight, or at least new nations to 
overrun; and when even the world is his own, the 
provinces of his empire, must be kept in awe by mili- 
tary force. There is no doubt therefore that his system 
of conscription will be as extensive as his conquests ; 
and it will probably be his prudent plan, to transport 
the levies of every country into some distant province ; 
just as he sent his unfortunate Polish legions, to employ 
their free born ardour in the slave-war of St. Domingo. 

Should our gallant young men, from 18 to 25, be 
marched in chains, like the conscripts of France, to 
the coast, and embarked for service in the torrid 
zone, or in some other distant region ; they may be 
indulged perhaps, with a last embrace of their chaste 
wives, or a last adieu to the dear objects of their first 
affections ; and then, if the pain of leaving such pledges 
in the hands of their licentious masters shall admit of 
any aggravation, it may be found in the thought, that 
by a timely enrollment for the defence of their country, 
all this might have been avoided. How will they then 
execrate those improvident lawgivers and statesmen, who 
indulged their love of ease, at the expence of their civil 
security ! 



155 

The obvious conclusion from these remarks, is that 
as far as involuntary service may be necessary for 
the full and perfect security of the country, it ought 
without scruple to be exacted. 

How far such a necessity now really extends, it may 
not be easy to determine ; but looking at the present 
situation of Europe, and especially at the population of 
the French empire, it is surely no immoderate estimate, 
that what France has already done, England cannot 
safely omit. We should at least, go as far in preparati- 
on, as she has gone in practice. While her young 
men from 18 to 25 are actually serving, our young men 
of the same ages, should at least be preparing to serve. 

I am far however from thinking, that this is the only 
part of our population which ought to be trained to 
arms. Every man under forty-five, should be in some 
degree prepared to take part in the defence of the 
country : but while a moderate share of discipline* 
might be all that the elder classes could conveniently 
acquire ; the young, ought, with all possible expedition 
and correctness, to learn the whole business of a sol* 
dier. 

Of the specific means, for thus generally arming the 
people, I speak with hesitation and diffidence, being 
conscious that there may be difficulties which I have 
not sufficiently weighed ; and feeling my great incom- 
petency to judge, either in a military or financial view, 
what particular plan is the fittest to adopt. That the 
people should be armed, and that the youth of the 
country should be assiduously prepared for service 3 



U6 

plain common sense may suffice to discover ; but in 
what specific mode, with what gradations, and by what 
persuasory or compulsory means, these great ends may 
be best obtained; are questions on which even the 
ablest Field Officer, and best informed Statesman, may 
deliberate with anxiety and doubt. 

At the same, time I feel, that to suggest some practi- 
cal ideas, is in such a case, the fairest way of bringing ab- 
stract principles under review ; and I will therefore in a 
very brief, and general way, sketch the outline of a plan ; 
not as the best possible application of the principles which 
should be adopted in the defence of the country, but 
as an example of their actual use. 

First. — The fundamental maxim of the plan, should 
be that every man who is of an age to bear arms with 
effect, and disabled by no bodily infirmity, should be 
trained, as speedily and as fully as general convenience 
may permit, to the use of arms ; and to all such duties 
of the soldier, as may be learned without actual service. 
Difference of age, should vary the time, the degree, and 
the manner of preparation ; but the exceptions ground- 
ed on circumstances exterior to bodily fitness for 
service, should be such only as the nearest civil in- 
terests of the country, the very first of which is re- 
verence for religion, indispensibly require. 

Second. — I conceive the limitation of age should be 
from 17 to 45. Men of a later period of life, might 
form themselves into, or continue in volunteer corps if 
they pleased ; but should not be constrained to take 
up arms, nor permitted to mix themselves with young- 



157 

cr volunteer, 6 , unless under such regulations .as would 
prevent any prejudice to the corps at large, through 
their unfitness for actual service. 

3d. The men liable to compulsory training, should 
be divided into three classes,, as follows: The first 
composed wholly of men between seventeen and twen- 
ty-five ; the second, of men from twenty-five to thirty- 
five y the third, of men from thirty-five to forty-five 
years of age. If the classification should be varied in 
any degree, on account of conjugal or parental connect 
tions, as in the Defence Aft of 1803, that principle 
should be admitted only in the two latter classes. The 
proportion of married men under twenty- five, who, 
with the aid of their wives, could not compatibly with 
the public services required from them maintain their 
families, would not be large ; and a distinction there- 
fore ought not to be admitted in favour of the married 
of that class, which would materially impair the best 
force of the Country. 

4th. Every man of either class, who chuses to equip 
himself, and be trained, at his own expence as a volun- 
teer, should have liberty so to do, and be exempted 
from the compulsory training to which he would other- 
wise be liable, upon enrolling him3eif in some volun- 
teer corps now existing, or in some new corps whose 
offers of voluntary service shall have been accepted by 
his Majesty. The present volunteers, should of course 
have liberty to continue as now incorporated, subject 
only to the new interior arrangement already suggested. 
But it would be a point fit to be submitted to the dis- 



158 

eretion of his Majesty, whether they should be recruit* 
ed by new members of the first class $ or whether in 
new corps to be formed, any intermixture of that with 
the elder classes, should be permitted. 

By the volunteers however, whether old or new, 
much stricter regulations must be adopted for enfor- 
cing frequent meetings, and regular attendance, than 
now in general exist ; nor should there be any relaxa- 
tion of those duties, until upon the most exact inspec- 
tion, all the members shall be reported, by a field officer, 
to be perfect in their military exercises and discipline. 
By the effect of this rule, members of the same asso- 
ciation would become vigilant inspectors of each others 
regularity and progress ; and a man, who by his negli- 
gence postponed the perfection of the corps, and the 
consequent relaxation of its active duties, being found a 
nuisance to the rest, would either be reformed or ex- 
pelled. A majority of members should have the power 
of expulsion for that cause; and a volunteer, once ex- 
pelled from his corps, should be obliged to submit to 
compulsory training in his proper district, till being 
perfectly disciplined, he should be able again to obtain 
admission into the same, or some other corps. 

The Commanders in Chief, or Inspecting Field 
Officers of each district, should prescribe to each par- 
ticular corps of volunteers, the time within which, upon 
pain of being disbanded, and made subject to compul- 
sory training, they should attain the requisite degree 
of discipline, for actual service. — Herein, however, 
some regard might be had to the professions, occupa- 



153 

tions, or situations in life of the members ; and a 
similarity in these particulars therefore, ought to, and 
would determine, the choice of a corps. The same 
officer ought also to approve their plan, as to times of 
meeting, fines for non-attendance, &c. though these 
might be left, in the first instance, to the judgment of 
the corps itself, and might be subject to occasional 
variations, under the inspecting field officer's sanction. 

5th. When the volunteer corps were thus either 
formed entirely of men of the same class, according to 
the divisions already mentioned, or divided into first, 
second, and third companies, or other denominations, by 
the same rule; distinctions might and ought to be made, 
in the degree of application and dispatch required from 
different corps and divisions, in qualifying themselves re- 
spectively for service. The youngest class should be al- 
lowed a shorter time for that purpose than the second ; 
and the second than the third. Young men may be ex- 
pected to acquire expertness in the use of arms, and in 
the various movements of a battalion, much easier than 
men of more advanced years; for which reason, as well 
as because they will be the most efficacious soldiers in 
fch e field, they ought to be trained with much greater 
dispatch than their seniors. 

6th. I think that no pay should be allowed to any 
member of a volunteer corps out of the national purse, 
unless when he is called into actual service, or perma- 
nent duty ; though this rule may perhaps admit, and 
require, particular exceptions. Nor should the allow- 
ance for the corporate expences of these corps, be very 



m 

tonsiderable. The alleviation of public burthens in 
this respect, may be an important object ; and the petty 
contributions of the members, might be considered as a 
tax paid by men who have property enough to prepare 
themselves for service at their own charge, for the 
superior ease and convenience of their military edu- 
cation. 

Here it may perhaps be objected that the distinction 
between such volunteering, and compulsory service, is 
merely nominal; and I admit it is so; except in the 
choice of a corps, and accommodation as to the times 
and places of exercise, and in the modes of coercion or 
discipline. In all other respects, the duties of the 
volunteer, and of his fellow citizens in general, sup- 
posing compulsory enrollments to be necessary for our 
defence, would and ought to be the same. 

7th. Provision being thus made, if necessary, for 
the improvement and increase of the volunteer insti- 
tutions ; the whole mass of the people of proper age for 
service, except such of them as prior to a very early 
period, should produce certificates of their enrollment in 
some volunteer corps, ought to be speedily, but pro- 
gressively, trained and disciplined, so as to fit them for 
act ml service. 

What proportion of them should be put in requisi- 
tion, at once, for that purpose, I presume not to deter- 
mine ; but the men of the first class, should in 'a 
great degree, if not exclusively, be the first selected. 
The mode of compulsion, should, in the first instance, 
be as mild, and as analogous to tne ordinary sanctions 
7 



161 

tif municipal laiv, as possible. The best course, per- 
haps, would be the imposition of a small fine, for non- 
attendan:e, or for any act of insubordination, with 
a progressive increase in its amount on every repeti- 
tion of the offence ; and a discretionary power in this 
respect , should be intrusted to those who may be ap- 
pointed to adjudge such penalties; in order that they 
may be fairly adapted to the fortune, or situation of 
the offender. The last resort against the untractable, 
after repeated convictions, should be the sending them 
to some corps of regular troops, to be appointed for 
receiving such persons ; in which they should be subject 
to all the strictness of martial law, until thoroughly 
qualified for service. 

It wouid be a convenient and fair expedient, to 
oblige those gentlemen in every district who are past 
the period of military duty, and yet not disabled by 
age or infirmities, to act in rotation, as Deputy Lieu- 
tenants or Commissioners, for the purpose of adjudging 
fines, allowing excuses, and executing such other judi- 
cial functions, as the new sysiem might require. It 
would thus become the duty and interest of every 
man in the community, who is capable either of 
military or civil service, to forward the grand common 
object, as speedily as possible; for when once the 
people were thoroughly trailed, and not till then, alf 
these troublesome functions would, for the most part, 
cease. 

The process of training should be progressive, in 
respect of method, as well as of numbers ; at least? 

M 



16<2 

such should be the case with the younger classes; 
The business of the drill might be conveniently and 
expeditiously learnt by every man, in his proper parish, 
by the allotment of an adequate portion of time for the 
purpose in each day or week, without calling him far from 
his home, so as to interfere with his domestic comforts ; 
but after the manual and platoon exercise are learnt, 
the young defenders of their country, may best be 
taught the more complicated business of the regular 
soldier, and initiated in his proper habits, by being 
embodied in battalions or brigades, and employed for a 
certain time exclusively, in military duties. Beyond 
all doubt, the first class ought to take the precedence, 
in thus finishing their military education. 

If I may rely on the judgment of those who are best 
qualified to calculate the time necessary for this im- 
portant purpose, it would not be necessary to separate 
out young men above three months in the whole from 
their ordinary residence, and^civii employments, in order 
to make them perfect soldiers ; by which I mean, as 
perfect as men who have not in the ordinary meaning 
of the phrase, " seen service," can possibly become. 

Such is the brief outline of my ideas, crude and 
imperfect ones I admit, on this momentous subject. 

I do not overlook the financial and political objec- 
tions, that may be opposed to this, or any other plan 
for a general armament ; but to state and answer them 
fully, would be greatly to exceed those bounds which 
must be prescribed to the present work. The great 
and compendious answer to them all is, that they must 
be surmounted, were they tenfold as strong as they are. 



163 

1 conceive* however, that this, great and necessary 
effort for the safety of the country, would probably in 
the end, be less expensive than the vexatious and costly 
means that must be employed greatly to increase our 
regular forces : and if there were now any possible 
cause of diffidence in the loyalty of the people at large, 
which I entirely deny, the best way to remove it, is to 
arm them in the national cause. Habits of military 
subordination, are the best correctives of a licentious 
popular spirit. If any man doubt it, let himcontem- 
plate the conduct of the army and conscripts of France; 
and this not only under Buonaparte, but through 
every change in the government that has succeeded 
the first revolution. Men are taught mechanically by 
military exercises, the strength of concentrated power, 
and the utility of obedience ; and they become also 
attached by new feelings, to that government in whose 
support they are actively engaged. 

I repeat, however, as. the short answer to all objec- 
tions which apply to the principle of a general arma- 
ment; it is indispensably necessary. Times are arrived, 
in which we can find no other sure expedient, to avoid 
a foreign yoke. We must become a nation of soldiers, 
or a nation of slaves. 

Sect. 4, Reformation^ is an essential basis of our 
national safety. 

It remains to say something of that other mean of 
averting our public dangers^ which I proposed to con- 
sider, namely, reformation. As to patience and unani- 
mity , their importance will be readily perceived j but 

Mi 



164 

the necessity of such reformation, as I mean to 
suggest, may perhaps not be equally obvious. 

Were 1 to recommend the correction of abuses- 
of a financial or constitutional kind, some readers 
would readily concur.— These, they would say, are 
indispensably necessary; and without these, pati- 
ence and unanimity cannot be expected. But 
these are species of reformation, which it is not my 
design here to consider; both because there is no 
dearth of advocates to recommend them; and because 
a wish to reform such abuses, where they admit of safe 
corrcection, is not wanting in his Majesty *s councils. 

Frugality in the public expenditure, is beyond all 
doubt a duty of high moment ; and the neglect of it 
under the present circumstances of the country, would 
be truly opprobrious. Whether any such constitu- 
tional reformations, as moderate and wise men have 
desired, ought now to be attempted, is a question 
•which I will not discuss. It is of too extensive and 
delicate a nature, to form an incidental topic in a work 
like this. 1 will only remark, that as there never was 
a period in which the popularity of our glorious consti- 
tution, and of our government, was more important ;. 
so never was it more dangerous to propose in Parlia- 
ment, any measure greatly desired by a large portion of 
the people, against the known sense of a majority of 
the legislature. 

Leaving such questions to others, I would insist 
only on the immediate duty and necessity of one refor- 
mation, which we have too long owed, both to God 



165 

and Man - 9 which a great par! of the community most 
anxiously desires; to which both Houses of Parliament 
are now solemnly pledged ; and which I firmly believe 
to be more essential to the salvation of the country, 
than her volunteers, her army, or her navy . I mean 
the abolition of the Slave trade. 

Here, perhaps, some readers who have hitherto 
assented to most of my remarks, and have found little to 
censure in these pages, except the feeble and inadequate 
manner in which momentous truths have been treated, 
will be disposed to lay the pamphlet down with a smile ; 
-and exclaim, what connection has this stale subject 
with the fate of England ? 

I conjure them, however, if they have borne with me 
thus far, to listen a little longer. I implore them to 
recollect, that many of the most important relations 
between human events and human conduct, have been 
hidden from the wise and prudent, till subsequent to 
catastrophes which their timely discovery might have 
averted : " If thou hadst known^ even thou, at least 
" in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy 
<c peace ! But now they are hid from thine eyes. 5 ' 

That the Slave trade is in its consequences, politi- 
cally injurious to the country, is a proposition which 
has been proved so often, and so clearly, in Parlia- 
mentary debates, and in arguments addressed to the 
public, that I need scarcely regret the want of time to 
offer here new demonstrations of its truth. It can be 
doubted only by those who will not listen or read on the 
subject p or whose prejudices are quite invincible. 



166 

The national mischiefs, however, produced by this 
commerce and the colonial system which it generates, 
are more and greater than even abolitionists have yet 
stated. They are evils sustained at the great expence 
of that commercial welfare which they are falsely 
aliedged to promote ; and by a still more ruinous waste 
of our national wealth. They have cost us tenfold as 
many millions as they have truly returned. 

The bankruptcies among our merchants, and the 
losses among our manufacturers, produced by the Slave 
trade, and by West India speculations in new lands, 
those kindred bubbles with which it is always asso- 
ciated, notoriously and greatly exceed, in number and 
extent, the gains and the fortunes produced by them. 

I quarrel with no theorists here ; unless they would 
push their maxims to preposterous extremes. Be it 
admitted, that the wrecks of individual enterprize are 
often public emolument : still there must be limits to 
the practical application of such theories. A nation 
cannot profit by the adventures of its citizens, when 
private ruin is the ordinary event j and success the rare 
exception. 

Hazardous, and in a general view, unsuccessful, as 
these speculations have always been, they are now be- 
come infinitely more so. Before the markets of Europe 
were shut to our West India produce, the prices of 
Sugar were so far from yielding a profit on the 
Planter's capital, that they hardly paid his annual ex- 
pences, and the charges of sending his commodity to 
ILurppc. War has I admit, contributed to these 



167 

effects. But war, alas ! is now become a perennial evil. 
Nor could peace bring any mitigation that could possi- 
bly turn the balance in favour of the planters at large. 
Jn fact, sugar planting has long been, on an average, a 
losing business ; and is now become from the natural 
progress of causes inherent to the existing system, inde- 
pendently of the evils of war, but above all from the 
continuance of the slave trade, a speculation which, to 
thegreat majority of advent urers,is and mustberuinous.* 
That men are found still to engage in it, is no argu- 
ment whatever to the contrary ; any more than the great 
sale of lottery tickets is a proof that the chances are on 
the whole beneficial to the purchasers. 

* That the sugar planters, in the old islands, have, for many 
years, been progressively sinking deeper and deeper in rum, is a 
fact quite undisputed among those who know any thing of the 
case. In a late publication, by a gentleman of high commercial 
character, and intimately connected with the sugar colonies, it is 
held that estates in St. Kitt's, an island famous for the quantity and 
quality of its produce, do not produce on an averag-, for a series of 
years, 4 per cent, on the capital invested. Yet the legal interest of 
that island is 8 per cent. ; and many planters are glad to obtain 
money at that rate. The incumbrances on estates in the We*t In- 
dies, notoriously bear a large proportion to the whole value of the 
capital : it requires little calculation therefore to snew, that enor- 
mous losses must be incurred ; and on whom do they chiefly fall 
but English creditors ? — See letter to William Manning, Esq. M. P. 
by C. Bosanquet, Esq. p. 17. 

If further proof be wanted, that sugar planting is become a 
ruinous employment for our commercial capital, I refer to Sir 
William Young's late work ; and to the last menifasto of the 
Jamaca Assembly, printed by order of the House of Commons, 
February 35th, 1805. Bankruptcy is there described as the 
almost universal lot of the planters of that island, 

M 4 



168 

The West India lottery, from the unhappy and 
extreme inequalities of sugar crops, has still a few 
tempting prizes : and so it would, perhaps, if upon 
the general capital embarked, there were a loss of 90 
per cent. The successtul adventures, like the 2o,oool. 
prizes at Guildhall, are blazoned in every walk of Eng- 
lish commerce ; while the blanks are unnoticed and 
forgot. New dupes therefore are continually fonnd ; 
and while millions are periodically sunk by our planters, 
and slave traders, by our merchants and monied men 
who trust them, and by our manufacturers who trust 
the merchants"; the nation, like a simple lottery club, is, 
fatally persuaded, that it is beneficial to follow the 
game. 

Mean time, the accursed system begotten and upheld 
in all its abuses by the Slave trade, produces a state of 
interior weakness and danger in these colonies, which 
has made them, both in peace and war, most expen- 
sive incumbrances on the revenues of the parent state ; 
and fatal drains on our regular army. The West Indies 
have probably cost us more money since 17 9 2, than 
all our military operations on the Continent, and sub- 
sidies to our allies, united -, and the waste of our regu- 
lar infantry which they have occasioned within the 
same period, has beyond doubt, greatly exceeded 
the whole collective losses of our army, by sickness or 
tha sword, in every other service. * 

* Sir William Young, has given in his late work, authentic 
returns, whereby it appears that out of 19,676 men, mustered 
in the windward and leeward islands from 1796, to 1802, we lost 



169 

Were there no other objections to the Slave Trade, 
than that it is continually adding to the extent of mercan- 
tile capital, thus wastefully applied, and colonies thus 
dreadfully maintained, it would be a sufficient reason 
for its abolition. But this horrible commerce, at the 
same time, forms an insuperable obstacle to benign 
improvements in our sugar colonies ; and tends to per- 
petuate every mischief, moral and political, that be- 
longs to their interior system. "While a slave market 
exists, neither wholesome laws, nor individual benevo- 
lence, will ever be able to meliorate the general lot of 
those wretched beings, who toil under the whips of 
the drivers. It would be as rational to attempt to 
bring a sea marsh into tillage, without first embanking 
against the tide. 

That the propositions last advanced, are not wholly 
consistent with the delusive representations of self 
interested men, and with the prejudices of the ill- 
informed, I too well know ; and yet I cannot con- 
sistently with the plan of the present work, proceed to 
demonstrate their truth. Should the grand abolition 
controversy not soon be shortened, by the force of those 
admitted principles on which it ought to be decided, 
the public shall ere long, be possessed of some precise 

by death, no less than 17,173. But this account, I apprehend* 
contains no part of the army employed in St. Domingo, or Jamaica, 
nor does it embrace the losses during the years 1793, — 4, and 5* 
during which the yellow fever was peculiarly destructive 

See West India Common flace Book, page 218. 



and systematic information respecting colonial slavery j 
and I trust then to satisfy every man who will take 
the pains to reason upon well established premises, 
that all these propositions and remarks, as to the ill 
effects of this commerce in the colonies, are irrefra- 
gably true. Mean time, I will rather leave them unar- 
gued to the reflections of the discerning reader, than 
^orbear to iiotice such powerful considerations, among 
the reasons for abolishing the Slave trade. 

There are other and higher views however, upon 
which, without assuming any thing that can be the 
subject of controversy or doubt, we may arrive at the 
same practical conclusion. 

The esteem of foreign nations, is obviously of 
consequence to us at all times, and especially at 
this singular conjuncture. — We feel it to be so s 
for we have endeavoured to conciliate their good 
opinion and friendship, by very costly sacrifices. 
Buonaparte too, is of the same mind; for he is. 
scarcely more intent upon ruining our commerce, than 
destroying our reputation on the continent; and 
beyond doubt, it would tend much to preclude our 
effectual interposition, at some future and auspicious 
season, between his ambition, and the remnant of 
Europe that has yet escaped his sword, if he could 
succeed in persuading the world, that we are a sordid, 
selfish, and unprincipled people, whose gold is their 
god, and who would spread desolation through the 
earth, for the sole purpose of extending their com- 
merce. It might also further his present plan, of en- 



171 

gaging the powers still neutral, in a confederacy against 
our maritime rights. 

Now who can contemplate the slave trade, without 
feeling, that in that point, we are justly chargeable 
with the very crimes which the enemy imputes to us r 
— It is false, that we promote wars, for the sake of 
our trade in Europe ; but that we thus sin in Africa, 
is unquestionably true. It is a foul libel, that the 
European continent owes its present miseries to British 
avarice ; but that the great African continent owes 
chiefly to that cause, miseries far greater and more 
durable than those of Europe, cannot fairly be de- 
nied. 

Buonaparte indeed, has not accused us of the slave 
trade. The prejudices of which, he is the dupe, and 
the crimes which he has committed, have shut his 
mouth on that subject. But a great majority of his 
subjects, and of the people of all other nations, cannot 
but supply in their reflections, what his invectives have 
in this respect omitted ; and when they think of the 
slave trade, must be prepared to believe us capable of 
all that he libellousiy imputes. Even accomplices in 
guilt, know how to estimate the indications which it 
furnishes, of the general principles of their associates. 
Let it be remembered too, that this is a crime, not in 
the contemplation of others merely, but in our own ; 
a national iniquity, long since recorded as such, by the 
solemn confession of our representatives in parliament, 
as well as by the voices of thousands apd tens of thousands 
of the people. Our public discussions on this subject, and 



172 

tfee resolutions of the Commons, in 1792, excited great 
attention in other nations, and no where more than in 
France. What then must be thought, of our having 
for fifteen years subsequent to that period, not only 
cherished the inhuman commerce which we had pro- 
fessed a resolution to abandon, but greatly enlarged 
its extent ? 

What is actually thought in France, we well know. 
- — The apologists of the slave trade, as well as its 
enemies, accuse us of a vile hypocrisy ; supposing that 
we meant to lead other nations into a dereliction of 
their share of the trade, in order that we might mono- 
polize its profits. I am well informed, that Buona- 
parte mentioned his belief of our dissimulation on the 
subject to Mr. Fox, when in his company at Paris ; 
and was assured by that great man, but probably 
without effect, that the opinion was unfounded. — -No 
man could have repelled the charge with a better 
grace, than that generous statesman ; one of the ruling 
feelings of whose heart was abhorrence of this detes- 
table traffic. He publicly professed that he should 
regard its abolition as an attainment valuable enough 
to overpay all the labours of his life; and regretted 
in death nothing more deeply, than his leaving that 

work unfinished. 

But though Mr. Fox doubtless said to the First 

Consul, every thing which the wish to deliver his coun- 
try from so opprobrious an imputation, could suggest; 
he must have felt that it was not easy to explain 
or defend our conduct. Buonaparte probably remain* 



175 

td unconvinced ; and wronged the sincerity of his illus- 
trious guest, by supposing that he had less love for 
truth, than for the credit of his country. 

That we have incurred upon this account, much 
odium and contempt with the French people in gene- 
ral, cannot be doubted. Even after the usurpation of 
Buonaparte, a large part of them were so averse to the 
infamy of repealing their own decrees against the slave 
trade, that a very bold stand was made against the 
measure in their senate; and the consul, notwithstanding 
the terror of his newly acquired power, found himself 
opposed by a minority of 27 to 54. Let us here be just 
to our unfortunate enemies (unfortunate they truly 
are, though guilty too}. Their liberty was irretrievably 
lost, through the crimes which it had engendered; 
but they would have saved from the wreck the most 
generous of their reformations, if the sordid and mis- 
taken policy of their new master, had not opposed it. 

They must have felt, however, with indigna- 
tion, that England, more than Buonaparte, was in 
fault, His advocates strenuously pleaded our exam- 
ple as his apology ; and the defence, it must be admit- 
ted, was far more specious, than that which some of 
the friends of this horrible commerce, offer upon the 
same principle in England. If the mistress of the ocean 
can plead, that she has no power to abolish the slave 
trade, while other nation s continue to carry it on ; 
the same plea was much more allowable to France, 
who cannot in time of war, protect her colonies 



174 

from conquest, much less their commercial laws from 
suspension, against her maritime and slave trading 
enemy. Good men indeed, and even bad men, who 
reason clearly, would see the absurdity of the defence 
ia a moral view ; for France could at least deliver her- 
self from the guilt and the shame, if not Africa from 
the scourge, of the commerce. But considering how 
small a share she possessed of it, and how large a 
portion of it is in our hands, she could not hope in 
any great degree to benefit the unhappy natives of that 
country, by a sacrifice in which we would not concur. 

It seems impossible to doubt, that our opprobrious 
adherence to this traffic, has added much to the popu- 
lar prejudice against us in the the minds of Frenchmen 
in general. During the last war, it naturally con- 
firmed the apprehension, that we were, from selfish 
motives, enemies to their freedom and independency ; 
for it indicated a national character consistent with 
such sordid feelings ; and now when when events 
have precluded that suspicion in regard to the present 
war, the same crime gives colour to the calumnies of 
Buonaparte, and prepares the people, especially the 
friends of the negroes among them, to believe that 
we basely wage war against them for the sake of com- 
mercial spoils. Sure I am at least, that our immediate 
renunciation of the slave trade, would tend to open 
the minds of Frenchmen, to our true character j to 
make the war with us unpopular among them, and 
lay a basis for solid reconciliation, when the spirit of 



175 

their government, and the state of Europe, shall allow 
of our sheathing the sword. 

If we turn to America, the importance of our na- 
tional character, in this particular, will be more than 
equally apparent. There, we certainly labour under 
great and unmerited reproach. The most moderate 
and abstemious use even of our maritime rights, is in* 
dignantly resisted ; and partly from misapprehensions 
which we vainly attempt to remove.; because they spring 
from a rooted conviction, that our policy is uniformly 
directed by narrow minded and selfish principles : It is 
said that we scruple not to trample on the rights of the 
weak and defenceless, whenever it may promote the 
interests of our navigation and trade. It is equally 
singular and mortifying, that even Mr. Randolph, and 
our other apologists in that Country, admit to their 
opponents, that we really act on such principles; con- 
tenting themselves with the argument that other nations 
do the same. Yet no reasonable ground or colour for 
such imputations, is to be found in our late treatment 
of the United States; except perhaps in our too lavish 
concessions. It is true that self-interested individuals 
have, for their private ends, fomented this Anti-British 
spirit in America, by false and injurious charges; but 
our general impressions of the moral character of any 
individual, have a powerful effect in our construction 
of his conduct towards us; and it is in some measure 
the same between nations. 

There is, perhaps, no part of the world in which we 
iiave incurred so much disesteem by our conduct, in 



I7o 

regard to the slave trade, as in the Northern States of 
the American Union; in which the late resentment 
against us seems to have been the most prevalent : nor 
is there any country, in which the abandonment of 
this commerce, would have a more powerful influence 
in our favour. May it soon be in the power of our 
friends in America, when they hear us taxed with ra- 
pacious principles, and a contempt for the rights of 
mankind, to adduce our dereliction of the slave trade, 
as a clear refutation of the charge. 

Should we now continue to refuse this long-pro- 
mised reformation, the reproach must take a deeper 
tinge than ever, in the eyes of all civilized nations. 
The Lords spiritual and temporal in Parliament as- 
sembled, have at length concurred with the Commons, 
in recognizing the moral turpitude of the trade, and in 
giving a pledge for its speedy excision, which it would 
be infamous not to redeem. 

If it be important that our national character should 
be vindicated in the eyes of foreignerss, not less so, 
that it should stand fair in our own. 

Who can doubt that a high sense of national honour 
and virtue, a reverence, as well as love for our Country, 
and above all a firm reliance on the protecting power 
of God, are popular sentiments of great value at an 
arduous crisis like the present. We are called upon to 
make great sacrifices ; perhaps to give the last proof 
of fervent attachment to our country; it is fit therefore 
that she should appear fair and amiable in our eyes, 



m 

and that whatever soils the lustre of her character should 
be instantly wiped away. 

There is indeed an attachment to the land that gave 
ns birth, which depends on no elevated sentiments. 
For my part, I am not ashamed to avow a love for the 
very soil itself; a weakness which has made me shed 
tears at bidding it a long adieu, which has made me 
review it with transport at my return, independently of 
the thought of every rational object of attachment, 
comprised in the endearing name of Country. I blush 
not to confess, that, in a distant climate, the expecta- 
tion of death has been embittered by the thought, that 
my dust would not mingle with my native soil. But 
the patriotism that deserves the name, is composed of 
nobler elements. It is a filial sense of honour and 
duty ; animated by reverence for all that is noble and 
great, by affection for all that is excellent and amiable, 
in the society to which we belong. It looks back on 
the glory of our ancestors, it looks up to the dignity of 
the throne, it looks round on the wise and beneficent 
institutions, the mild and equitable laws, the freedom, 
the happiness, the virtue, by which the social edifice is 
adorned ; till glowing with a generous enthusiasm it ex- 
claims, fi this is my beloved Country ! I received it 
from my fathers ; I will defend it with my blood ; I will 
transmit it unimpaired to my children 1" 

If such patriotic feelings are at this awful moment 
peculiarly seasonable and important, let them not be 
chilled with the sad reflection, that this same beloved 
Country is polluted by the most sordid and barbarous 
crimes ; that though dear to ourselves, she is a curse 
to a large portion of the globe ; that her wealth gene- 

N 



178 

rates, and her power maintains, a greater mass of human 
wretchedness and guilt, than even the pestilent ambition 
of France : perhaps than all the other political crimes of 
the age. "I have often thought," a pious friend who 
is thoroughly acquainted with the slave trade, once said 
to me, " that were an angel to look down from heaven, 
'■' in order to determine which of the nations of the 
" globe is the greatest scourge to the human species, 
" his eye would be arrested by Africa and the West 
" Indies, and by those receptacles of unspeakable 
" misery, the ships that are passing between them; 
" and his awful report would be, Great Britain is that 
" merciless nation.' 1 

It is by those only who have not read and reasoned 
upon the subject, or who suffer themselves to be de- 
ceived by rank, and inconsistent imposture, that such 
an estimate as this can be thought excessive. But 
were the dreadful effects of the crime at all disputable, 
not so at least its sordid and infamous nature. What 
rational being, who ever heard of the slave trade, can 
attempt to rescue it from our contempt and abhor- 
rence ? 

I demand here, however, no wider concession, than 
that this commerce is in fact a subject of extreme detes- 
tation with a large portion of the British people; and con- 
sequently a great drawback upon that reverence, and 
that ardent love, for the institutions and the moral cha- 
racter of his Country, by which the mind of a patriot 
should be animated in times of danger and distress. 

Let it be remembered too, that a large proportion of 
those who are most zealous for the abolition of the slave" 
trade, are men of religious feelings; and who regard this 



179 

traffic as a most heinous offence, not only against man, 
but against God. If there be statesmen or legislators, 
who can reconcile to their own views of Christianity, 
their own erroneous and inadequate notions of the slave 
trade, by looking beyond the crimes and the -cruelties 
perpetrated on the coast and on the middle passage, 
and even beyond the dreadful destruction of our spe- 
cies which ensues in the West Indies, and all the mise- 
ries of a hopeless bondage, to a supposed compensatory 
good ; let them consider that a large and very valuable 
portion of their countrymen, not only utterly disbelieve 
the existence of any such compensation - 3 but reject with 
horror the idea of abetting injustice, cruelty, and blood* 
shed, upon the principles of expediency. They even 
regard the deliberate admission of such a motive as an 
aggravation of the crime ; because it implies that man 
is wiser than his Creator, whose beneficent purposes, are 
thus supposed to be at variance with his own com- 
mands. 

I will suppose, for the argument's sake, that these 
men are unreasonably scrupulous ; still their own timid 
consciences, must give the law to their expectations of 
the favour or disfavour of God. Can it be doubted 
then, that multitudes of Englishmen, who regard the 
slavx trade in this light, are much disheartened and 
alarmed by that atrocious national sin ? Can they hope 
as confidently, in the benignant dispositions of Provi- 
dence for the safety of their Country, as if she were 
guiltless of innocent blood ? On the contrary, many of? 
them are much more intimidated by our persevering 
provocation of divine justice in the slave trade, than by 
all the burthens and all the visible dangers of the war. 

N 2 



180 

It alarms them more, and in the event of actual invasion, 
would tend more to damp that confidence so essential 
in the breast of a soldier, than all the victories of Buo- 
naparte. 

In the name then of this large portion of my fellow 
subjects, than whom none love their Country more, 
than whom none are more ready to abide all extremities 
in her defence ; in the name of those who worship God 
among us, and admit no pleas of expediency against 
his holy laws \ I earnestly implore from Parliament the 
immediate abolition of the slave trade. 

God forbid, however, that I should dissemble on this 
sacred subject \ and it would be dissimulation to state 
the uneasiness of religious minds on account of this 
great offence, without adding, that I think they are 
justly alarmed. 

Yes ! I will dare to avow an opinion, that the public 
calamities with which we have been so remarkably 
visited, ever since the iniquities of this commerce were 
laid open to the national conscience, and reformation 
"was callously withheld, have been chastisements for that 
odious cause. 

It cannot be necessary to apologize, in a land called 
Christian, for assuming in times like the present, that 
we have incurred the anger of heaven ; or for humbly in- 
quiring by what offences, that anger is most likely to 
have been excited. At an aera so portentous and alarm- 
ing, the Atheist indeed, if there be such a character 
among us, may behold with a stupid stare the machi- 
nery of second causes, without raising his thoughts to 
that Providence by which it is directed; but all who 
believe, that " verily and indeed there is a God who 



181 

€< governs the earth ;" and especially the sincere Chris- 
tian, will recognize in the afflicting prodigies of the 
age, the hand of the Most High. 

That the good or evil destinies of nations, are often 
the retributory appointmentsof divinejustice or bounty, 
no man who believes in the scriptures can doubt : " A 
fC fruitful land maketh he barren for the wickedness of 
" them that dwell therein." A thousand passages in 
holy writ might be cited to the same effect ; as well as 
multitudes of examples there recorded of public cala- 
mities, which were expressly imposed as punishments 
for national sins. 

What indeed can be more consonant to our views of 
the divine government, whether derived from revealed 
or natural religion, than such retributory justice ? 
Kingdoms have no world to come ; communities of 
men will not, as such, stand collectively, before the 
judgment seat of Christ. If then, it pleases the Al- 
mighty in his temporal providence, often to punish and 
reward in a remarkable manner, the vices and virtues 
of individuals ; we may reason from analogy (that best 
natural interpreter of the unseen works of God) to the 
probability that Nations, will sometimes be made to 
illustrate in the same way, his justice, power, an4 
mercv. 

It would be easy to shew, that there is in fact a close 
analogy in what is called the ordinary course of provi- 
dence, between the divine government of states, and 
of private persons. Their virtues equally tend to 
prosperity and long life ; their vices to misery and dis- 
solution. If the decline and fall of nations may gene- 
rally be dated from the period of their highest attain. 



182 

ments m arts and luxury, that is also the period of their 
most heinous offences against God ; and however oppo- 
site the proposition may be to ordinary notions, their 
most cruel sins against man also. But I must abstain 
at present from abstract discussions like these j and 
rely, as it is right tc do in such cases, on the express 
testimony of inspiration. 

In the particular case in question, I might fortify 
my remarks if necessary, by t\he authority of our na- 
tional church. We have been repeatedly enjoined, ori 
days of fasting and humiliation, to acknowledge that the 
calamities and dangers of the times are appointments of 
divine providence, on account of our national sins. 
The rulers of our Church, have not indeed attempted 
to point out to us the particular offences which call for 
reformation. Spiritual admonition- from the pulpit, is 
in the present age, of a general kind : but it is not less 
the right and the duty of individuals* to give a parti- 
cular and practical application to these pious reproofs. 
It is obvious that a distinct conception of our sins, whe- 
ther private or public, must be a necessary prelude to a 
sincere and efficacious repentance. 

We have no prophet to declare to us the causes of 
the displeasure of heaven ; but conscience may enable 
us to discover them ; and if we fairly apply the ex- 
amples and the declarations contained in the holy 
scriptures, to the case in question, we shall inquire in 
the proper way for its solution ; and with a well-founded 
hope of success. 

What can be more suitable to every exalted concep- 
tion of the divine nature, than the causes which are 
most frequently assigned in scripture for the chastise* 

7 



183 

-merit of sinful nations? They are, for the most parr, 
the sins of oppression, injustice, and violence towards 
the poor and helpless ; and the shedding of innocent 
blood. The offence of idolatry itself among the cho- 
sen people, was not more frequently denounced than 
these ; nor more severely punished. 

The passages of scripture which might be cited to 
this effect are numberless ; and it is perhaps only 
weakening the eneral effect of the remark, to adduce 
examples of them. Yet for the satisfaction of those 
who are not sufficiently conversant with the Bible, I 
offera. few in the annexed note.* 

The almighty declared himself offended even with 
those solemn Fa^ts, which were intended to avert his 
indignation, while oppression was unreformed. " Is it 
66 such a fast that I have chosen ? a day for a man to 
€f afflict his soul ? is it to bow down his head as a bul- 
" rush, and to spread sackcloth under him ? wilt thou 
M call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord ? 

" Is not this the fast that I have chosen ; to loose the 
" bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, 
" and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break 
" every yoke ?" 

Not less clear to the same effect, are the exhortations 
of the prophet Jeremiah. " Execute ye judgment and 
" righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand 
" of the oppressor ; and do no wrong, do no violence tp 
■" the stranger, and the fatherless, nor the widow, 
" neither shed innocent blood." 

* " For thus .hath the Lord of Hosts said: Hew ye down trees 
*! and cast a mount against Jerusalem. This is the city to be 
" visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her; violence 



184 

These, however, and a thousand such admonitions 
were slighted by the offending people ; anci what was the 
effect ? An invading sword was sent through the guilty 
land, its throne and its altars were overturned, and its 
surviving inhabitants, were dragged away by a merciless 
conqueror, to groan in their turn under oppression, and 
to illustrate in a miserable captivity, the retaliating 
justice of God ? 

Were we, with such scriptural precedents and ex- 
planations of the ways of the Almighty before us, fo 
search for the causes of the apparent displeasure pf 

u and spoil is heard in her ; before me continually is grief and 
f? wounds." Jeremiah vi. 6, 7. 

(< Make a chain ; for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the 
*' city is full of violence : Wherefore I will bring the worst of tl}f 
J f heathen, and they shall possess their houses." E^ekiel vii. 23-4. 

" Therefore thus saith the Lord • Ye have not hearkened unto 
f* me in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and every 
«* man to his neighbour ; behold I proclaim a liberty for ypu, saith 
" the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and 
!' I will make you to be removed with all the kingdoms of the 
«' earth." Jeremiah xxxiv. 17. 

" The children also of Ju4ah, and the children of Jerusalem, have 
** ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from 
" their border." " Behold, I will raise them up out of the place 
*\ whither ye have sold them ; and will return your recompence 
" «;pon your own head." '* And I will sell your sons and your 
** daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall 
«' sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath 
f spoken it." Joel iii. 6, 7 — 8. 

«' Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the 
f people shall spoil thee; because of men's blood, and for the 
p violence of the 'land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.' 
$ Wo to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, tha 
\\ he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the 
|f power of evil.". u Thou hast consulted shame to thy house K? 



185 

.Heaven ; it would be natural to turn our eyes towards 
the Slave trade, on account of the specific character of 
the guilt which it involves ; even if its enormous mag- 
nitude, did not pre-eminently challenge attention. 
If rapine, oppression, violence to the poor, the stranger, 
and the destitute, dishonest gain, and the effusion of 
innocent blood, be put in inquest against England, 
where will they be found but in the Slave trade ; ex- 
cept indeed in its associated iniquity, the dreadful sla- 
very of our colonies ? 

I know there are many who suppose us to be mer- 
ciless oppressors in the East Indies, as well as the West, 
But if the suspicion be applied to our treatment of the 

*' cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul." 

; * For the stone shall ery out of the wall, and the beam out of the 

'* timber shall answer it." *' Wo to him that buildeth a town 

*< with blood, and establisheth a city by iniquity." Habakkuk iU 

** The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised 
*f robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy ; yea they have op- 
f* pressed the stranger wrongfully-" " Therefore have I poured 
** out mine indignation upon them, I have consumed them with 
f* the fire of my wrath; their own way have Irecompensed upon 
<c their heads, saith the Lord." Ezekiel xxii. 29-31. 

" Behold therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest 
f« gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been 
(e in the midst of thee." Ezekiel xxii. 13. 

" By the multitude of thy merchandize they have filled the 
?« midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned : therefore I 
" will destroy thee." " Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the 
" multitude of thy iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic : there- 
" fore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall de- 
" vour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth, &c— 
" and thou shall be a terror, and never shall thou be any more,'* 
Ezekiel xxviii. 18,19. 



m 

poor, or the great mass of the people; it is utterly un- 
founded. There is no slavery in the dominions of the 
East India Company, unless the condition of a few 
domestic life servants, may deserve the name; and 
even these are so treated, that their bondage can scarce- 
ly be distinguished from freedom. But the labouring 
classes of the community, are in general free ; nay, for 
the most part, the agricultural labourers till their own 
leasehold lands; for which they pay a fixed and very mo- 
derate rent. In no part of India are they so happy in 
this respect, as within the British territories; and if the 
native Princes have ever had cause to complain of us ; 
to their subjects, at least, it has been an advantage and 
a blessing, to be transferred to the government of the 
Company. I heartily wish we were as innocent of 
neglecting their moral, and spiritual improvement, as of 
impairing their temporal welfare.* 

If we cast our eyes around us in this happy 
island, there is still less matter of charge against the 
national conscience on the score of violence and op- 
pression. In no other part of the globe, are the poor 
and helpless so well protected by the laws, or so hu- 
manely used by their superiors. Nor are the laws 
chargeable with injustice towards the less fortunate 
peasantry of our sister island ; though here perhaps, 
there is much that ought to be reformed. If the 
legislature be now culpable in regard to Ireland, it is 
for omission and neglect ; rather than for positive wrong; 
nor does the fault arise from any of those unrighteous 

* It is but just to sty, that the late Governor-General Marquis 
Wellesley, was very laudably disposed to promote the religious 
instruction of the native;. 



m 

principles, or from that oppressive use of power, which 
are so peculiarly offensive to Heaven. 

If therefore we are suffering for such offences as have 
usually provoked the scourge of the Most High, if it be 
as the protector of the poor and destitute, that God 
has entered into judgment with us, we must I repeat, 
look to Africa, and to the West Indies, for the cause* 
of his wrath. But the magnitude of the crimes of the 
Slave Trade, still more than their specific character, 
will conduct us to the same conclusion. 

Near 37,000 unhappy men, women, and children, 
are yearly carried by us from their native land to a far 
distant country ; there to perish prematurely ; or to end 
their days in hopeless captivity and bondage.* They 
have given us no offence -, they have, for the mo&t part, 
committed no crime even against their countrymen, 
worthy of exile or slavery ; the motive of our transport* 
ing them, is pure undefecated avarice. Yet by 
our hands, and by our procurement, the dearest ties of 
nature are barbarously rent asunder ; the husband is 
-dragged from the arms of his wife, the innocent child 
from the bosom of its parents, and the cries of their 
agonized feelings are ended only by the silence of 
despair. At this moment, ten thousand shrieks and 

* The number of Slaves carried from Africa in 1804, in ships 
cleared out from Great Britain, supposing their cargoes to have 
equalled, and nGt exceeded, the numbers limited bylaw, was 36,899. 
(See Sir W. Young's West India Common Place Bool:, page 8.) 
This account, however, comprises the Slave ships trading under- 
British colours only. If the British -Slave Trade, carried on under 
American and Danish colours, prior to the Act of last Session, were 
included, the dreadful amount of the human victims immolated at 
the shrine of our national avarice,, would be greatly enlarged. 



188 



groans, uttered by the helpless victims of British vio- 
lence, are entering the ear of the Most High, the righte- 
ous judge of the whole earth, and demanding vengeance 



against us. 



While our slave ships, like hungry vultures, hover 
continually over the coasts of that hapless continent, 
dreadful are the horrors in the interior by which their 
victims are prepared. 

The exportable slavery of Africa, is for the most 
part, the produce only of crimes ; which we directly or 
indirectly stimulate the wretched natives to commit; 
and by our means, every species of misery, is continually 
propagated through the greater part of that vast con- 
tinent. Treachery, false accusation, man- stealing, 
midnight rapine, and conflagration, are ordinary means, 
by which in- aid of that more copious source, capti- 
vity in war, our demand for slaves is supplied ; and 
while by the frequency of these crimes, man becomes 
to man a greater terror than the lion of the desart, to 
the destruction of all innocent commerce, and civil 
intercourse between individuals ; frequent and dreadful 
wars are kindled between their petty states, for the 
sole purpose of obtaining captives to barter with our 
merchants, for the arms and luxuries of Europe. 

Nor is war only increased in point of frequency; its 
horrid features are rendered far more dreadful, by the 
same detestable motive. — Populous villages are beset 
at midnight, by armed bands, who after killing all that 
make resistance, carry off, to a more dreadful fate, such 
of their prisoners as are fit for servitude; leaving of 
course to perish, all who from age or infirmity, depend- 
ed upon the more vigorous for support. 



189 

That this description of the sources of exportable 
slavery is strictly true, all who will take the trouble 
of reading the most decisive public evidence, may be 
fully convinced* Their effects on the state of manners 
and society in Africa may be easily conceived : and 
where man is made at once so wretched and so guilty, 
it may scarcely excite additional horror, to reflect what 
enormous and various destruction of human life, must 
directly, or collaterally result, from the same detesta- 
ble commerce. This murderous waste however, is of 
far greater extent than the uninformed suppose. 
Many of the unhappy captives, are brought to the 
shores of the Atlantic from very remote parts of the 
interior country ; and in their way have extensive desarts 
to pass, where so many external hardships and suf- 
ferings are added to the anguish of their minds, that 
of those who originally set out for the coast, a great 
number perish miserably on the journey.* 

Exportable slavery then, is not only the fruit of 
atrocious crimes, and exquisite wretchedness ; but this 
fruit is not, and from the nature of the case cannot, be 
thriftily gathered. The hapless country, for every 
bondsman placed in the hold of a slave ship, is deprived 
of much more than a single life. 

But a still further waste of human existence takes 
place in that foul prison itself. The mortality on the 
short passage which ensues, among persons chiefly in 
the prime of life, is by the last accounts equal to five 
in every hundred ; even when the excesses of a blind 



* Some truly shocking illustrations of this truth may be found 
in Mr. Park'* travels. 



190 

and merciless avarice are controuled by the regulations 
of the acts made to limit the carrying trade. * 

Much greater proportions of the slaves which arrive 
in the West Indies, are confessedly brought to an un- 
timely and speedy death, by the seasoning, or training 
to compulsory labour, in our islands ; f- and on the 
whole, it may fairly be calculated, that not less than 
three human beings are directly, or indirectly sacri- 
ficed in Africa, on the middle passage, and in the 
West Indies, in order to place a single seasoned negro 
upon a sugar plantation. 

Such is the murderous nature of this intercourse 
with Africa, which opprobrious ly to the character of 
commerce, is known by the name of the slave trade. 

If we were to compute the homicides which it has 
produced since we first embarked in it, the amount 
would almostexceed credibility. Perhaps it would be no 
extravagant, though a horrible proposition, that a sword 
of divine vengeance which should utterly extirpate 

* Sir W. Young's West India Common Place Book, p. 10. 

f Hy a public document, in the possession of his Majesty's Mi- 
nisters, it appears that in Trinidada a full moiety of between eight 
and nine thousand imported negroes had perished in two years. To 
enable the reader to conceive the complicated miseries which 
brought them to their end, it would be necessary to give much, 
and very shocking information, respecting the settlement of new 
lands in the West Indies. 

It is reported that a great number of Chinese have lately been 
carried, by whose procurement I know not, to that island. It is 
impossible here to expose the false views on which such an expe- 
dient to settle the new lands by free labourers has been built; but I 
seize this opportunity to protest publicly against it., as a preposter- 
ous and cruel experiment. 



191 

the whole population of England, would hardly exact 
more than life for life, for the innocent African blood 
with which we are justly chargeable.* 

* Mr. Edwards, estimates the total import of negroes into th« 
British colonies, from 1680 to 1786, at 2,130,000, but admits that 
this is much less than was commonly supposed ; and it may, I con- 
ceive, be reasonably taken at three millions. In 1787, the impor- 
tation was 21,023. History of West Indies, vol. 2, book 4, chap. 2.) 
From/1795 to 1804, the numbers carried from Africa in British 
ships, were 380,893. (West India Common Place Book, page 8.) 
and these may be presumed to have been chiefly carried to colonies 
then in our possession ; because our foreign slave trade was, dur- 
ing that period, chiefly carried on under American and other neu- 
tral colours. 

I cannot immediately refer to any authentic information as to 
the state of the trade during the two last years, or during the years 
from 1788 to 1794 inclusive; but as it has progressively increased 
during the last twenty years, it will be a very moderate estimate 
to take the importation in the years last preceding each of those 
periods, as the average of the whole. The importation in 1787, 
therefore, being 21,023, tnat * n seven years to the end of 1794, 
was at least 147,151 ; and the importation of 1804 being 36,899, 
we must add 73,798 for the two last years. We have thus 

Prior to 1786 - - 3,000,000 

In 1787 - - 21,023 

From 1787 to 1794 inclusive 147,151 

From that time to 1804 380,893 

In 1805 and 1806 - - 73>798 



Total 3,622,865 imported into the 
British colonies. 

How many of these have prematurely perished by the seasoning, 
or from the subsequent effects of West India slavery, cannot be 
fiscertained ; but we may guess at it from the following data. Mr, 
Edwards asserts, that from authentic lists of entries in his possession, 
there were imported into Jamaica, from 1700 to 1786, 610,000 ne- 
groes, and we canot suppose less than 100,000 to have been on the 
island at the commencement of that period. From 1 786, to the end 



152 
It would be quite incompatible with the rtecessary 

of 1792, the numbers imported, on the ordinary proportion which 
Jamaica has had of the whole British trade, could not be less thai* 
30,000. These numbers together would give, supposing the 
births to equai the deaths, a population at the end of 1792 df 
740,600 slaves ; whereas Mr. Edwards publishing in June 1793* 
estimated their numbers at 2505000, being less by 490,600, than 
the numbers imported ; and even this, was near 40,000 more than 
the amount of the last poll tax returns. (See History of Jamaica, 
vol. i. book 2, chap. 5.) The loes, therefore, in this island, 
would be near two -thirds of the whole number imported, if it were' 
not for a deduction that is due on account of the numbers re-ex- 
ported ; which Mr. Edwards estimates to have been in Jamaica, 
about one fifth part of the import. Allowing, by this rule, I2#,i2<i 
to have been re-exported, the loss will be reduced. to 362,480, or 
nearly one half. 

It may perhaps be objected, that in the long period here taken, a 
great proportion of the whole number imported, must have died, 
even under the mildest treatment, and under circumstances the 
more favorable to longevity ; and that the calculation, therefore, 
for the most parr, onlypiores that the births have not equalled the 
deaths. 

But I answer first, that it is impossible to suppose the growth 
of native population to have been kept down by any means, that 
have not at the same time shortened the lives of the adults; espe- 
cially considering how extremely prolific negroes are in other places, 
under far less favorable circumstances of climate and loca 1 nation. 
Secondly, that it is an error to suppose that the difference between 
the numbers imported, and the remaining population, constitutes 
the whole loss by mortality. On the contrary, the numbers of chil- 
dren, born and prematurely cut off, during so long a period, in an 
old settled island like Jamaica, may be fairly supposed to have 
much more than equalled the whole import. While we deduct 
then from the amount of a mortality produced by oppression among 
the parents, we must add to that which was produced by the same 
cause among the children. 



193 
limits of this work to state even in the most summary 

Nor is it an answer to say, that a great proportion of infants every 
where perish without attaining to maturity j for such a surplus of births 
is also found, where oppression does not exist, as more than equals the 
loss, and makes the rising greatly exceed the declining generation. 

It is true, that among new-imported negroes the males shamefully 
outnumber the females ; but let it be put on the other side of the ac- 
count that these are almost all in the prime of life, when added to the 
ancient stock. 

If with all the blights to which infancy is subject, and all the barren- 
ness of age, the grove of human society is still elsewhere full of leaves 
from shoots of its natural growth, what luxuriance of foliage would the 
transplantation of such multitudes of exotic seedlings in their full bear- 
ing have produced, had they found a genial soil. 

If after all, such objections should be allowed to diminish the tale of 
actual murder, a more than equal addition might be made on the latter 
view to the dreadful character of the system. It has probably hindered 
the increase of our species, by four times the number of millions that it 
has directly destroyed. 

The mortality innew settled colonies, is notoriously far greater than in 
such as like Jamaica, have been long in cultivation -, and therefore if a 
moiety of the imported Negroes have prematurely perished in that island, 
to suppose that the same proportion of all the slaves brought to our colo- 
nies in general, has met the same fate, will be probably far too low an 
estimate. — If so, we are guilty of the blood as well as the misery, of above 
one million eight hundred thousand of our fellow-beings, by premature 
mortality, the effects of their rgorous bondage, in our colonies alone. 

But the dreadful account by no means ends here : for we have to add 
the great numbers lost upon the passage, and on the coast, prior to their 
departure from it, which during the long period that preceded the. Slave 
Carrying Acts, was probably at least 15 per cent, and we have next to 
wia*en the basis o£ computation, by the whole amount of our trade di» 

o 



194 

manner,, the dreadful oppression to which the unhappy 
expatriated Africans are doomed, in the colonies to which 
we carry them. A subject so copious, so important, so 
much misrepresented, and so little understood, requires 
to be illustrated in a treatise of no small extent, confined 
to that single object : and such a treatise I have already 
promised to submit to the public, unless the interests of 
humanity should happily cease to demand it. Mean- 
time I will in general affirm, that our sins against 
that devoted race in the New World, would even exceed 
those with which we are justly chargeable in Africa, were it 
not for the consideration that they are much less generally 

rectly from Africa to foreign colonies, or with foreign ships on the coast- 
This has always borne a large proportion to the whole of our colonial im- 
ports. By the tables famished by Sir W. Young in his recent work, it ap- 
pears, that at the two different periods to which his account of our foreign 
Slave Trade relates, viz. 1/8/ and 1802, it comprised near 4-7ths parts of 
all our exports from Africa. And of 20,658 Slaves supplied to foreign co- 
lonies in the latter year, only 5389 were re-exported fro/n British Islands. 
— On the whole, it may be very moderately computed that we have sent 
from Africa, including the vast numbers that used to be sold by our ships 
on the coast to the French and other foreigners, two thirds as many 
in all as we have imported into British Colonies; and therefore if we 
have carried directly to the latter 3,622, S65, we have probably expatria- 
ted in all, above six millions of these unhappy fellow-creatures. Let the 
loss on the passage, and in the foreign colonies, upon this additional mul- 
titude be reckoned, and then let us take into the account the enormous 
waste of life that must have been produced in Africa, in the reducing by 
war, by conflagration, massacre and all our other ordinary manufactories 
in that country, six millions of people in the prime of life, into a 
state of exportable bondage. When the whole of these dreadful 
items are put together, the conjecture in the text will perhaps appear to- 
be no excessive estimate. 



195 

known in this country, and therefore less deeply affect the 
consciences of the people at large 

If the guilt of the slave trade, in respect of the nature of 
the offence itself, be enormous, how much more when we 
consider the peculiar obligations which we have long owed 
as a nation to a benignant providence. 

Who are the people that have provoked God thus hein- 
ously, but the same who are among all the nations of the 
earth, the most eminently indebted to his bounty ? He has 
given to us an unexampled portion of civil liberty ; and we 
in return drag his rational creatures into a most severe and 
perpetual bondage. Social happiness has been showered 
upon us with singular profusion; and we tear from oppres- 
sed millions every social, nay almost every human comfort. 
In short, we cruelly reverse in our treatment of these un- 
happy brethren, all the gracious dealings of God towards 
ourselves. For our plenty we give them want ; for our 
ease, intolerable toil; for our wealth, privation of the right 
of property ; for our equal laws, unbridled violence and 
wrong. Science shines upon us, with her meridian beams; 
yet we keep these degraded fellow-creatures, in the deepest 
shades of ignorance and barbarity. Morals and manners, 
have happily distinguished us from the other nations of 
Europe ; yet we create and cherish in two other quarters of 
the globe, an unexampled depravity of both. A contrast 
still more opprobrious remains. God has blessed us with 
the purest effulgence of the Gospel ; and yet we dishonour 
by our slave trade the christian name ; and perpetuate the 
darkness of paganism among millions of our fellow-crea- 
tures. 

At this time of war, and impending danger, other strik- 

O 2 



196 

ing contrasts arise, between the treatment which we have 
long received from the Almighty, and that which we give to 
our poor African brethren. He has girt our isle with a bul- 
wark which for ages has not been broken ; war has scarcely 
during a century and a half, a brief and slight civil 
contest or two, excepted, visited our happy soil; and 
its horrors for the most part have been too remote, 
to excite even a fear of its contact. To devastation 
by foreign armies, we have been strangers for many 
centuries. In short, our domestic exemption from 
the miseries of war, has been perhaps unparalleled 
among nations. But the eye of an all-seeing God, beholds 
in Africa, a contrast dreadful indeed ; and of which much fa- 
voured Britain is the chief, as well as most guilty, author. 
There, the wretched villager can at no time lay down his 
head in safety, secure from being, before the rising sun, the 
victim of a predatory invasion. To fill our slave 
ships, the sword, the fire arms which we furnish, and 
the torch of midnight conflagration, ravage that hapless 
land ; and war, in its terrors at least, if not in its actual in- 
flictions, is nearly incessant. By Britain, both the arms 
and the motives are supplied ; by Britain, those horrid con- 
sequences of captivity, eternal exile and bondage, are chiefly 
inflicted. The commerce, the maritime energies, which 
to ourselves impart security, and internal peace -, are in our 
hands, the instruments of unspeakable misery to helpless 
and unoffending millions. 

Do we shudder at the idea of those calamities which a suc- 
cessful invasion would bring upon our country ? They would,, 
as I have faintly attempted to shew, be indeed dreadful ; and 
a. united people should prepare to make every sacrifice,, 
and to encounter every danger, by which they may be aver- 



197 

ted. But while we contemplate these menaced evils ; whil€ 
we deprecate them in our closets, and in the house of God ; 
let conscience fairly suggest to us what more dreadful inva- 
sions we are hourly abetting in Africa I how much worse 
than even French bondage, is the captivity which we mul- 
tiply, and perpetuate among her innocent children ! May 
the merciful disposer of all events, avert from us, guilty 
though we are, the horrors of a foreign yoke ! but let not 
those who can, and will not, deliver us from the impious 
crime of the slave trade, join in this prayer for our country ; 
lest it should from their lips offend, rather than propitiate, 
the just Governor of the world. 

The obstinate adherence to this crime, with which we 
have too long been chargeable, is another aggravation by 
which Divine justice may be reasonably supposed to have 
been provoked j for perseverance in guilt, after admonitions 
to reform it, has in what we know of the course of Providence 
towards nations, been usually added to the offence, before 
the scourge has been inflicted. 

The iniquities of the slave trade are of ancient date. 
During along course of years it has been a standing crime 
of England to export Negroes from Africa, and sell 
them into a cruel bondage in the colonies. 

But of a stubborn and obdurate mind, long perseverance 
in a particular sin is not conclusive evidence. An inve- 
terate, as well as a recent, criminal habit, may have had 
its origin in ignorance, or heedlessness : and if conscience 
has at first been blind, or inadvertent, the error is more 
likely to be confirmed, than diminished by the length of 
the sinful practice.* The divine .justice and mercy, 

* It is well known, that Queen Elizabeth was persuaded, that the 
Negroes, carried from Africa to her colonies, were voluntary emigrants ; 
and expressed a pious horror at the idea of taking them by force. 



19S 

therefore, • are most clearly vindicated, when to long 
forbearance, awakening expostulation is added, prior to 
the avenging stroke, Accordingly, we are told that 
Noah preached righteousness to his cotemporaries, prior 
to the overwhelming deluge. We find Lot, expos- 
tulating with the inhabitants of Sodom, before the fall 
of the avenging fire from heaven. Moses and Aaron 
were sent repeatedly to admonish the Egyptians, and 
to demand the dismission of the oppressed Israelites, 
before the various plagues which fell upon that devoted 
land, successively chastised its contumacy. Above all, 
the dreadful scourges which were inflicted upon the stiff- 
necked, though chosen race, were always preceded by an 
open exposition of their sins, and earnest calls to repen- 
tance -, till at last the warning voice of the Messiah him- 
self, loudly denounced those full-blown iniquities, which 
were consummated by their rejection of that sacred Moni- 
tor, and were soon after punished by a terrible destruc- 
tion. Amidst so many signal examples of this righteous 

mode of dealing of the Most High, we have one, in which 
the obduracy of the human heart relented, and the up- 
lifted scourge was withdrawn ; for at the preaching of 
Jonas, Nineveh repented and was spared. 

In alarming conformity to these scriptural precedents, 
will be found the conduct of Providence towards this long 
favoured nation, upon the hypothesis that severe chastise- 
ments for the guilt of the Slave Trade, have been already 
felt, and that still severer are now approaching. 

The extreme wickedness of our African commerce, and 
of the colonial oppressions which it generates, were, till 
about 19 years ago, but little known to the British public at 
large ; and even our most intelligent Statesmen and Sena- 



tors, had but imperfect conceptions, of the number and 
extent of those foul crimes which British subjects had long 
been perpetrating against the Negro race, upon both sides 
of the Atlantic. — The mode of procuring Slaves in 
Africa, and the horrid effects of our enormous and increasing 
demand for them, in that ill-fated region, were distinctly 
known only to the obscure and sordid individuals im- 
mediately engaged in that opprobrious traffic. Some 

crude notions prevailed, that men were unjustly torn from 
their native land in Africa, and oppressed in the West 
India Islands ; but the detail and the extent of their 
wrongs, were uninvestigated and unknown. It was not 
clearly understood, that multitudes of cruel murders were 
chargeable upon the British nation, as the ordinary effects 
of the Slave Trade. 

" The times of this ignorance God winked at." 
It pleased him in the inscrutable counsels of his provi- 
dence, wherein compensations for temporal evil, rich 
enough to make its permission just, and beneficent, are 
reserved for the virtuous sufferer, that the cruelties of our 
traders and colonists, should be long shrouded in obscurity, 
and unarraigned at the national bar. 

But the greatness and suddenness of the light, was at 
length as remarkable as the long duration of the darkness. — 
In the year 1787, the wrongs of the oppressed Africans, 
forcibly attracted the attention, and excited the com- 
passion of some able and eminent men. Their case was 
powerfully stated to the public, and still more powerfully 
.brought into parliament. The moral feelings of the na- 
tion were appealed to, and the appeal was at first very 
favourably received. —Pity, remorse, and indignation, were 
almost universally inspired ; except, indeed, among that 



200 

too large and powerful proportion of our fellow subjects, 
whose private interests and connections, or prejudices born 
of such influence, bound them to the side of the colonies. 

This appeal to the national conscience, was not 
supported merely by the exertions of individuals, or 
by private and hasty examinations of the case. Obvious 
and seemingly irresistible, though the moral considera- 
tions were that demanded an abolition of the slave trade, 
it was made the subject of deep and long investigation. 
The great inquests of the Crown, and the People ; the 
Privy Council, and House of Commons, went into 
elaborate inquiries respecting the nature and extent of those 
crimes, whereof the nation stood arraigned by some of its 
most respectable members : and while evidence was re- 
ceived on the part of the accusers, every opportunity was 
given to those who profited by the alleged iniquities, to 
deny, extenuate, or excuse them. Even the immediate 
perpetrators of those crimes, were received as witnesses 
in their own favour. A denial upon the word of an 
African Trader, or West India Proprietor, of any charge 
by which his own interest and character were assailed, was 
admitted as freely, as the testimony of those who were 
liable to no selfish bias. 

Inquiry therefore, if not impartial, was at least, not par- 
tial to the accusers — Yet what was the result ? 

To state the substance of the evidence, even in the most 
compendious form, would be to demand the perusal of a 
large volume, upon a subject not likely I fear to obtain the 
attention which it pre-eminently deserves, at this alarming 
juncture. — But the general effect, is sufficient for my pur- 
pose, and may be briefly told. The slave-trade was con- 
demned in the House of Commons, the only branch of the 



201 

'Legislature that gave an early opinion upon the evidence, in 
the most deliberate and satisfactory way. That immediate 
reformation was not voted, is a lamentable truth; but the 
reprobation of the Slave trade upon moral principles, was 
not on that account less decisive, as a parliamentary ver- 
dict, of its iniquity. It was even more so perhaps, than 
had the just practical consequence been instantly adopted. 
There were enemies enough to virtuous reformation, to 
carry a vote for delay $ but even these, with the excep- 
tion of a self-interested few, were as strongly of opinion 
that the abolition of the trade was a moral duty, as their 
opponents: nay, they admitted, that even the imperious mo- 
tives of a supposed political necessity, the ground upon 
which they voted against an immediate reform, would not 
justify the suspension of the measure beyond a period of 
eight or ten years. 

To those who cannot, or will not, undertake the labori- 
ous task of examining the printed evidence, more complete 
satisfaction as to the enormity of this national crime cannot 
be offered, than arises from the confessions of those sena- 
tors by whose votes it was protracted. Does any man 
doubt that the slave trade is a system of gigantic guilt, let 
him go to their speeches for conviction. The talents of 
some of these men were very eminent, their diligence ex- 
treme, "their sceptical dexterity in political discussions- 
characteristically great. Can it be believed then, that 
they would have conceded to their opponents, _ ground so 
formidably strong, as the admission of the moral duty of 
terminating this traffic at an early period, if the effect of 
the evidence before the House had not irresistibly deman- 
ded such a concession? Were the guilt of a convict, whose 
execution had been respited, matter of doubt, what could 



me 



be stronger satisfaction than to say, that the friends at 
whose earnest solicitation his life had for a while been 
spared, had confessed the justice of the sentence ; and 
petitioned for no more than a temporary stay of exe- 



cution ? 



While the nature and magnitude of this grand iniquity, 
were thus incontestibly established in point of evidence, it 
pleased Heaven, to aid the effect which the display of its 
hideous features was fitted to produce, by various modes 
of direct and strong expostulation. Not only was a flood 
of light poured upon the conscience of the nation, which 
before lay sleeping in darkness, but a voice clear and loud, 
as ever spoke without miracle to man, called upon it to 
awake, and escape from the judgments of God. From the 
happy texture of our constitutions the public mind has ma- 
ny organs, through which knowledge, political as well as 
moral, can be conveyed with peculiar facility ; and through 
them all, were the People of England addressed upon this 
occasion, in the most impressive manner. In Parliament, 
the call for reformation, was supported by a concert of 
splendid talents, such as perhaps was never employed be- 
fore, in the support of any national measure 1 Nor was 
the credit of high station, wanting to give weight to the 
persuasions of eloquence ; though its official influence, was 
fatally withheld'. 

Supposing it to have been the will of God, that the re- 
sult of this grand investigation should furnish clear evidence 
of our sinful character as a people, it is not difficult to dis- 
cover, why while such strong expostulation was addressed 
to the Commons, both in and out of Parliament, the influ- 
ence of Government was neutralized, through an opposition 
in sentiment which prevailed between different Membe rs 



203 

of the Cabinet. Certain it is, that the theory of our 
constitution, was in this case followed in practice, with 
a much closer correspondence than is usual ; and perhaps 
than is generally expedient; and that there never was 
known in Parliament upon any question of equal interest 
and importance, since the influence of the Crown succeeded 
to the awe of prerogative, so absolute a neutrality on the 
part of the Administration. 

The call thus fairly, and thus solemnly, made upon the 
Parliament and People of England, though admitted to be 
just, has not hitherto alas ! led to repentance. Like Pha- 
raoh, we promised for a moment to let the people go -, but 
like him, we speedily relapsed, and persevered in following 
the counsels of national avarice, in defiance of that voice of 
conscience, which is the undoubted messenger of God. 
Our public affront to the Majesty of Heaven, in this view, 
exceeded that of Pharaoh -, for he appears to have doubted, 
till convinced by repeated plagues, that Moses spoke by 
Divine authority -, whereas Christians, could not question 
the authority of those sacred principles, with the practical 
demands of which we nevertheless refused to comply. 

I have not time to examine those strange and inconsistent 
excuses, that were offered by some respectable individuals 
in Parliament, for withholding immediate reformation. 
They were not only unsound in moral principle, but founded 
on assumptions of facts that are demonstrably untrue - 3 and 
most of their authors have since, either actively or passively, 
departed in conduct from those practical conclusions to 
which their own arguments led. — But no man can read the 
Parliamentary debates on the Slave Trade, without per- 
ceiving the chief motives upon which the majority acted. 
The sordid consideration of commercial expediency, was 



204 

in reality the ground upon which the solemn call upon the 
national conscience was effectually repelled -, and moral 
principle, was deliberately sacrificed by a national assem- 
bly, upon the altar of public interest. 

Now what was this, but a public and systematic defiance 
of the authority of God ? — Had the alleged notion of 
effects compensatory in point of humanity, that most 
specious, though preposterous plea, been ever so 
sincere, and well founded ; still such a perseverance in 
acknowledged iniquity, would have been opprobrious to a 
Christian legislature ; and, as I believe, without a prece- 
dent in any age or nation. — If individuals, in aiming to 
produce good by a breach of die divine law, contract 
presumptuous guilt ; more obviously still may it be pro- 
nounced of nations, in such cases, that cc their condemna- 
tion is just." In public morals, still more than in private, 
an infraction of acknowledged principles of the divine law, 
is ill compensated by any imaginary good consequence, 
while it is peculiarly affronting to the Majesty of heaven; 
for this false principle, always implies that God is not the 
best judge of the tendency of his own institutions -, and when 
irreverence to the Deity, finds admission into senatorial 
assemblies, the example must be fatal indeed. 

Murder, let it be remembered ; deliberate, cruel, and 
wide-extended murder, is an indisputable, though by no 
means the only sin, continually produced by the Slave 
trade. Thousands of innocent lives rapidly destroyed, 
and tens of thousands consequentially, and most miserably 
wasted, are annual fruits of our African commerce: yet 
this, and still deeper guilt, is openly persisted in by the 
vote of a British parliament, for the sake of the supposed 



COJ 

temporal good to be produced by it, and the temporal 
evils that are feared from reformation. 

We even aggravated this violation of the law of 
God by alleging as motives of perseverance in it, the 
interests of our navigation and trade. The singular re- 
solution 'of a Christian legislature, to prosecute for years 
to come, a career of acknowledged oppression and blood- 
shed, upon principles of national convenience, seems to a- 
mount to a sin, which not only in its degree, but in its kind, 
is unprecedented and enormous. It is a contumacious de- 
nial of the supremacy of God j a kind of high treason 
against the Majesty of Heaven. 

What made the massacres in the streets of Dublin some 
years ago, different in the species of crime, from ordinary 
murders, but the traiterous principle on which they were 
perpetrated ? The rebels had not yet enthroned a usurper, 
or erected a republic ; neither have zve yet set up the 
image of Commerce in St. Paul's Cathedral; but we carry 
slaughter among the innocent subjects of the King of Hea- 
ven, as Emmitt and his followers, among the subjects 
of an earthly King, in open contempt of his laws ; because 
there is an object of disloyal attachment in our hearts, 
which we avowedly prefer to our allegiance. We say, 
ff It is true O God, thy laws are good, but the laws 
of commercial policy are better— W 7 e must continue, for 
a while at least, to violate thy most solemn command- 
ments, and to destroy, as w^ell as oppress, thy rational 
creatures ; because we can no otherwise preserve our 
commerce, our colonial interests, and navigation." 

There remains one further scriptural characteristic of 
those crimes, by which the penal doom of nations has 
been sealed.— I mean the perverse and audacious extension, 



206' 

Of that very iniquity, which has been the recent subject of 
divine expostulation, and of a neglected call to repentance. 

<c They be idle— therefore they cry, saying, Let us go , 
and sacrifice to our God, — let there more work be laid 

upon the men, that they may labour therein.'' — ■ . 

<c Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick 
as heretofore ; — let them go and gather straw for them- 
selves." (Exodus, chap. v. ver. 7, 8, 9.) — Such was Pha- 
raoh's answer to that demand of God, cc Let my people go, 
that they may serve me;" and thus did he audaciously straiten 
those bands of oppression which he was commanded to 

relax. The same infatuated Monarch, enhanced the 

guilt of his contumacy, even after he had been repeatedly 
chastised. Immediately before the slaughter of the first- 
born, the last and decisive plague, he drove the messenger 
of God finally from his presence, " Get thee from me ; take 
heed to thyself, see my face no more : for in that day thou 
seest my face thou shalt die." And Moses said, " thou 
hast well spoken, — I will see thy face no more." Exodus^ 
chap, xxviii. ver. QQ. 

It was not possible for Great Britain, exactly to follow 
the first part of this precedent, by increasing the labour of 
her West India bondmen. They were already making 
bricks without straw ; and oppression in our colonies, had 
long produced an effect, for which a bloody mandate to the 
Egyptian midwives was found to be necessary, in the far 
milder bondage of the Israelites. — The poor Negroes, 
who have no land of Goshen, no flocks, or herds, to be 
the subjects of divine protection, no fleshpots of Egypt, to 
sustain them, and who have, instead of task-masters, and 
a tale of bricks, drivers armed with whips, to urge forward 
their toil ; could experience as the fruit of rejected inter- 



SOT 

cession, no exacerbation of their fate. Neither could 

slave making in Africa, be conducted with greater fraud 
and ferocity, than our white and black agents already 
employed and abetted, except through an extension of the 
trade. 

But what we could do in defiance of omnipotent justice, 
dreadful to think ! we did. If we could not make our 
colonial bondmen more wretched, we could add to their 
numbers. We could also enlarge the local domains of thas 
abominable system, of which the dreadful nature and 
effects were now for the first time understood, and laid 
bare to the national eye. We could acquire, at the fearfuJ 
cost of protracting a calamitous war, a new and vast acel- 
dama, for the immolation of the victims of our avarice, 
in Trinidada ; where the pestilent exhalations of an un- 
cleared tropical soil, would quicken the lethiferous process 
of oppression; and where enormous and evergrowing 
demands on the British slave market, would protract 
the chief pretence for continuing the devastation of 
Africa. 

Still more aggravation was possible ; and, though at the 
expence of the most obvious principles of worldly policy, 

was accordingly practised. Conquest had given to us 

a temporary and precarious possession, of a foreign territory 
of vast extent, on the continent of South America. To 
settle it by British capital, was like building on another 
man's freehold. The folly was still grosser ; for it was to 
increase the competitory powers of a dangerous rival to 
our sugar colonies ; and to augment the future maritime 
resources of an enemy. — Yet such was our increased and 
enamoured attachment to the manstealing trade, and to 
West India oppression i so eager were we to shew our con- 



208 

tempt for consistency, and for the sacred principles upon 
which reformation had been promised -, — so bold was our 
defiance of heaven; that full sixty thousand additional Slaves 
were manufactured by crimes in Africa, torn from their 
native land, and placed permanently upon that conquered 
soil, in the short term of three or four years, by British 
subjects alone. New plantations, from 70 to 100 miles in 
length, upon a frontier line, were opened at the same time 
in that foreign territory, upon British capital, or credit, 
in order to form still more extensive and insatiable 

demands for the same opprobrious commerce.* 

These facts are so strange, that they will hardly be cre- 
dible to future ages, though too notorious to be denied in 
the present. They imply a national infatuation which in- 
dicates, as well as an obduracy likely to have excited, the 
vengeance of the Almighty. 

The enormity of the aggravation of our sin, since the 
first call to repentance, will perhaps be best estimated, by 
a view of the actual increase of the Slave trade since the 
year 1787. 

* The following extract from the late work of Sir W, Young,an emi- 
nent Colonist, and parliamentary defender of the Slave Trade, will shew 
what even Gentlemen of that party, justly say of this branch of our 
national guilt : 

<c During the last war, and especially in the years from 1/98 to 1SOO, 
" the Slave Trade (per table 8,) appears to have been greatly extended, 
(f and which is to be attributed to the then speculations of settling the 
te vast and rich plains of Demerara $ which province, on the return to 
c ' Dutch Sovereignty, by the treaty of 1802, carried with it a vested 
" British capital of many millions, and the means of increased produce 
" to supply Europe with sugar, portending rivalship and ruin in the 
Si foreign market to the ancient British Colonies."— -(West India Com- 
mon Place-book, 11, 12. 



%09 

In that year, the number of slaves imported into our 
colonies collectively, including those which were after- 
wards re-exported, and sold to foreigners, was 2 1,023 y and 
upon a medium of five years, from the end of the Ameri- 
can war, the annual import was 21,307.* This too was a 
considerable increase upon the average of the three prece- 
ding years ; and even while we possessed those colonies on 
the American Continent which are now become indepen- 
dent States, our whole Colonial import of slaves, is estima- 
ted by Mr. Edwards, at no more than 20,095 annually. || 
Yet during ten years, from 1795 to 1804, both inclusive, the 
average number of these unhappy men yearly brought from 
Africa in British vessels, and under British colours, was no 
less than 32, 377- 1 Including the trade carried on by our 
merchants under neutral colours, the whole export on British 
account, probably amounted to near 50,000 per annum; and 
in a single year of that term, we exported under our own 
flag alone 53,051. J On the whole, it is a moderate esti- 
mate, that we have more than doubled this horrible trade, 
since we solemnly recognized its guilty nature, and pledged 
ourselves to abandon it. 

When we advert to the grounds chiefly resorted to by 
the advocates for a gradual, in preference to an immedi- 
ate abolition, our impious inconsistency will be still more 
apparent. We prolonged the slave trade that our plan- 

* See the account at large from authentic returns in Mr. Edwards' 
Hist, of the West Indies, Vol.2. Book 4. Chap. 2. page 57, 

j| Ibid. p. 55, 

f See the account at large in Sir W. Young's West India Common 
Place Book, p. 8. 

t Ibid, 

P 



1210 

tations in the Sugar colonies might fill up their numbers. 
But what was the whole amount of slaves in those colo- 
nies in 1787 ? According to the official returns in the 
report of the Privy Council, 465,276. What is now the 
amount ? Only 5^4,205 ;* giving an increase only of 
58,929 ; but of this surplus, the new-acquired colony of 
Trinidada furnishes, by the same estimate, 19,709; so 
that the actual increase in the colonies we held in 1787, 
is only 39,220. Yet we have brought from Africa in 
British vessels alone, since the pretended necessities of 
these colonies was made an apology for the slave trade, 
not less than 709,69 1 . || If the trade under neutral colours, 
permitted till last year, be added to the account, we have 
probably dragged a million at least, of men, women and 
children into perpetual exile and bondage, since we stood 
pledged to abandon such oppressive practices ; and equal- 
led in a few years of our promised penitence, the former 
crimes of half a century. 

The foreign slave trade indeed is at last abolished by 

* This is Sir W. Young's estimate for 1805. Ibid. 

i( By Sir Wm. Youngs table copied from official returns to the House 
of Commons, the numbers which the ships were allowed to carry from 
the coast (and it is a moderate assumption that they carried no less) were 
from 1795 to 1804 inclusively, 323,770. In 1787, the number actually 
brought to the British Colonies, was 36,000. 

No returns I believe have been published of the trade from that year 
to 1795 ; but it is a very low estimate to suppose, that at least as many 
were annually carried from the coast, as were imported in 1787. They 
*vere indeed probably far more numerous ; but taking that as the ave- 
rage, we have in seven years 252,000. If we then estimate the exports 
of 1805 and 1800, of which there is also no authentic account, as equal 
to that of 1804, which was 36,699,, there will be a further addition- of 
73,798. In all 706,691 



all 

law •, a reformation the value of which I am by no means 
inclined to disparage ; but with many supporters of that great 
measure, its principle was purely political : and its effect in 
permanently reducing the extent of the slave trade, as well 
as in diminishing the guilt of that commerce, will be very 
equivocal, unless we now proceed to a radical and well- 
principled reformation. Meantime I am reviewing the con- 
duct of our country let it be observed, since the year 1787; 
from which period to that of the last sessions of parliament, 
our adherence to this national sin was unqualified, and its 
aggravations such as I have noticed. 

Can it be denied then, that we have in this great nation- 
al offence, an adequate cause of the displeasure of Heaven, 
and of the calamities which have fallen upon the country ? 
or can it be alleged, that there is any cotemporary pro- 
vocation that bears any proportion to the slave trade ? If 
other sins of the same heinous species, could be justly char- 
ged upon us ; if cc the sorrowful sighing of the prisoner, 
the complaint of the poor oppressed, and the cry of -in- 
nocent blood," had gone up against us from other re- 
gions than Africa, and the West Indies ; still it ought to be 
shewn, that in those other cases, as in this, the crime had 
been aggravated by equal obduracy, and extended with 
equal perverseness, after the open exposure of its guilt, and 
solemn calls for reformation. But in these respects, as 
well as in its magnitude, and its cruel effects, the slave 
trade stands alone among our national offences ; defying, 
like Satan, in the foremost rank, the wrath of the Al- 
mighty. 

Could we suppose ourselves just arrived from another 
planet* impressed with our present ideas of the divine Go- 

P<2 



212 

vernment, but ignorant of the History of Europe since the 
year 1787> and informed alone of the Parliamentary discus- 
sions on the Slave Trade, and of those iniquities which 
England has since committed against the African race , we 
might naturally be disposed to inquire, " Has no scourge 
from Heaven yet appeared ? Have no calamities, indica- 
tory of Divine wrath, overtaken that guilty land?" But 
should we next take up a history of the French Revolution, 
and of the fatal wars that have ensued; and learn how 
strangely the prosperity, the peace, and the security of Eng- 
land have been subverted by them, what singular evils we 
have endured, ever since our first refusal to abolish the slave 
trade, and by what still greater evils we are at this moment 
threatened ; it would be impossible I conceive, not to re- 
cognize with wonder and awe, the chastising hand of God. 
The only difficulty would be, to comprehend how the li- 
ving witnesses both of the provocation and the punishment, 
could possibly be unobservant of the visible connection be- 
tween them. 

Never, to be sure, can phenomena more strikingly 
support any hypothesis of this kind, than the dates, the 
nature, and the extent, of our public calamities, the opinion 
that they are providential chastisements for the slave 
trade. — A guilty, though highly-favoured people, are 
called upon to renounce a — criminal and cruel, but 
long-established practice, as repugnant to the laws of 
God. — They hear — deliberate — disobey. While they 
still hesitate, a tremendous scourge is weaving for them 
in a neighbouring land — the moment they actually 
disobey, that scourge commences its inflictions. 

The abolition of the Slade Trade was first virtually 
refused by Parliament, in April, 1792. Immediately, we 



213 

were engaged in those stormy contentions within the 
realm, and those disputes with France, which soon ter- 
minated in the last calamitous war. In February, 1793, 

the House of Commons more openly and clearly declared 
against reformation, by postponing for six months a mo- 
tion made by Mr. Wilberforce, for going into a Committee 
on the Slave Trade ; which was in effect to refuse even the 
gradual abolition voted in the preceding year. — In the 
same month, a sword was definitely drawn, which was not 
during nine years returned to its scabbard ; and which is 
now redrawn, perhaps to be sheathed no more till England 
has ceased to exist. — Within that period of six months, 
during which the claims of justice and mercy were contemp- 
tuously adjourned, events took place in France, fertile to us 
of unprecedented evils, as we already feels and perhaps 
decisive of our fate. 

We have since gone on in the same path, rejecting mo- 
tion after motion, and bill after bill, upon the same ob- 
durate principles ; and a chastising providence has kept 
pace with our temerity; heaping misfortune on mis- 
fortune, and adding danger to danger. As we multiplied and 
aggravated the impious crime, God multiplied and ag- 
gravated the punishment. Treason, famine, mutiny, 
civil war, the loss of our specie, the sale of our land tax, 
the enormous growth of our national debt, the intolerable 
pressure of taxation, the discomfiture of our military enter- 
prises, the destruction of our armies by disease, the deplo- 
rable ruin of our allies, the stupendous exaltation of our 
enemies ; these, and other plagues, followed, like those of 
Egypt, in a rapid succession, upon every iteration of our 
refusals to obey the voice of God, by renouncing the ex- 
ecrable Slave-trade. 



: *14 

We obtained at length a breathing time of peace ; but we 
were still contumacious to the behests of the Almighty ; 
for such, I dare to call the plain demands of justice and hu- 
manity. He sent us therefore a new war - } and tremendous 
have been its events. 

Where will this sad series end? Can we weary out 
God ? Are we stronger than he ? Ah infatuated men ! 
who would still urge us to perseverance in this impious 
course, tremble at the prospect before you. Our public 
gloom, like the darkness of Egypt, may clear up for a 
while ; but if you harden yourselves still, the final event 
will be dreadful. 

It is needless to point out the extraordinary nature of 
the second causes by which these calamities have been 
produced./ They have excited universal astonishment, 
they have confounded the wisdom of the wise, and are 
without a parallel in the history of mankind. Even those 
who do not seriously look up to the disposing power of an 
all-wise and omnipotent Ruler of the earth, often speak of 
this case as if they did; because they have no other mode of 
expressing their amazement at the strange progress of events, 
But how can the devout mind, possibly pass unnoticed, 
the striking proportion and resemblance, as well as the 
singular coincidences in point of time, between these 
wonders, and the sin of the Slave Trade ? 

I date the grand provocation given by that crime, from 
the public developement of its nature, and the obdurate 
refusal to reform it.— -And when upon earth, since the 
delivery of the Israelites from Egypt, was there an equal, 
or similar case ? u Ask vow of zhe days that are past^ 
which were before thee, since the day that God created 
v.ian upon the earth; ana ask from one side of heaven unt® 



§15 

the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this 
great thing is> or hath been heard like it ? — Hath God 
assayed to take to himself a nation out of the midst of ano- 
ther nation, &;c* 

Let me with reverence imitate these awakening expostu- 
lations j and ask, was it ever before heard, or known, that 
God, speaking by the voice of conscience, and of his own 
revealed laws, publicly called upon a great, civilized, and 
highly- favoured people, to desist from spreading desola- 
tion and misery over a large region of the globe ; and from 
carrying into a horrible bondage, millions of his rational crea- 
tures ? — Was any human legislature ever before appealed 
to on a subject of such stupendous moment to the inhabi- 
tants of the earth, or upon such high and awful principles I 
But a still more alarming inquiry is, Did ever before any 
people, Christian or Pagan, so flagrantly violate the reli- 
gious principles vhich they profess to respect, and offer 
so gross an affront to the Deity whom they outwardly 
worship ; as the Parliament of England, in rejecting this 
appeal, and redoubling the crimes of the Slave Trade ? 

Surely in such a case, it is consonant to our precon- 
ceptions of the ways of Providence, that the punishment 
should be singular and wonderful in its means, as well in its 
severity. Surely the prodigies of the age, furnish here an 
awful parallel to the iniquities of England ! 

It is, I feel, injuring this great and sacred subject, to 
treat it in a cursory and partial way. The reasoning by 
which my own mind has long been clearly satisfied, that 
our sins against the African race have chiefly, or solely, 
drawn down upon us the calamities with which we have 
during near fifteen years been visited, rests upon an induc- 
tion from many particulars 5 and to omit any of them, is 



216 

to weaken the force of the rest. Upon the singular and 
important events of the laie war in the West Indies, and 
especially the extraordinary revolution in St. Domingo, 
many important observations might be made, tending 
greatly to fortify my general conclusion. But it is impos- 
sible in a work like the present fully to state, and still more 
to reason upon, the whole of the extraordinary phenomena 
from which my convictions are derived. Yet I cannot 
prevail on myself wholly to suppress at this great crisis, 
an opinion so closely connected with my general subject, 
and with the destiny of my country - y an opinion which has 
long had a powerful influence on the conduct of my life ; 
and which I share in common with many men of the 
clearest understandings, as well as the most distinguished 
piety and virtue. 

If my necessary limits will not allow me fully to state 
the hypothesis itself, and the positive arguments upon 
which it stands, much less to remove difficulties, or 
repel objections ; but there is one which, from its specious 
nature, demands from me some general notice. 

Is it objected that other nations have also drunk, and 
hitherto much deeper than ourselves, of the phial of divine 
wrath poured out in the French revolution ? I admit the 
fact. — But did they still drink deeper too of " the cup of 
trembling/ ' the dregs of which may soon be all our own, 
the objection would still be of little weight. 

Without attempting to explain, or conjecture, the entire 
scheme of a chastising Providence ; it may be presumed, 
that those nations also, have all grievously provoked the in- 
dignation of a righteous God ; and some of them in the same 
way, though not in the same degree, with ourselves. 
Infinite wisdom well knows how to punish many different 



217 

offenders, by the same identical scourge, or through the 
same sources of evil. 

I am relieved indeed from the necessity of suggesting a 
probable cause of provocation on the part of Austria, Prus- 
sia, and Russia \ since the striking retaliation which two 
of those powers have already met with, for their injustice 
and cruelty towards Poland, seems of late to have made a 
strong impression on the public mind. We not only hear 
in the conversation of the serious, and even of the irreli- 
gious; but read in the public prints, where matter of 
pious observation does not often find a place, remarks 
on the exact retribution which Divine Providence has 
in this case brought home to the spoilers of an unfor- 
tunate nation. To be sure, when we turn our eyes to 
Poland as the seat of immediate war - 3 when we recollect 
within how few years, its patriotic and unhappy Sovereign 
was deprived of his sceptre, by a foul confederacy of those 
powers, two of whom have since nearly lost their own; 
when we reflect on the unjust and violent partitions of 
territory, to which they have already been compelled in 
their turns to submit ; and how reasonably they may dread 
a final dismemberment of their dominions : — When, in a 
word, we find Buonaparte at Warsaw; and recollect how 
lately he was at Berlin, and Vienna ; it would be difficult 
even for an atheist, to ascribe such strong characteristics 
of a providential retribution, to the mere effect of chance. 
What I would wibh to add to the existing popular im- 
pressions on that subject, is only the remark, that Poland 
was like Africa, impiously destroyed upon pleas of political 
exped'micy* — That idolatrous principle, that grand heresy 
of the age, which strikes at the very foundation of the 
whole edifice of morals, and insults the Divine Lawgiver, 



218 

by arraigning the wisdom or goodness of his institutions, 
was the alleged defence of three mighty Sovereigns, for 
an avowed violation of justice. — They threw down the 
gauntlet to Omnipotence; and his vengeance seems to 
have taken it up. 

In other countries, causes of provocation enough 
might be found perhaps, without listening to those 
accounts which have been given of the degenerated state of 
their private morals and manners ; enough at least to satisfy 
those, who consider the substitution of philosophical scep- 
ticism for Christianity, as no venial offence against God. 
In Italy, that Caprea of gross and beastly sensuality, it 
would be still less difficult to find adequate causes, for its 
share of the general plagues. But after all, should any 
apparent difficulties remain on this subject, they would be 
only such as belong, in our finite views, to the ordinary pro- 
vidence of God. Some less offending nations of Europe, 
like innocent members of the same family, or country, 
may possibly be involved with their more guilty neigh- 
bours or connections, in evils which are the penal chastise- 
ment of extraordinary, as well as those which are the 
natural effects, of ordinary crimes. The Almighty has 
particular, or individual distinctions enough, and compen- 
satory provisions enG ugh, in store, to reconcile with univer- 
sal justice the occasionally awful display of his moral disci- 
pline towards nations and communities of men, without dis- 
turbing the general laws of nature : but it is evident, that 
unless such a miraculous discrimination as was exhibited in 
Goshen, were again to be made ; a scourge inflicted on 
many of the nations of Europe, must be felt in some mea- 
sure by the rest. 

As to France, Spain, Holland, and Portugal, their 



219 

shares in the oppression of Africa, at that epoch of general 
provocation which immediately preceded the grand revo- 
lution in France, were only inferior to cur own. I mean 
not to convey that they were chargeable with no other sins, 
peculiar in their extent and character to that period -, but 
in Africa and the West Indies, those slave -trading nations, 
had all like ourselves, recently and greatly aggravated their 
long established offences. 

Here, as in other parts of this great subject, I deeply 
regret the necessity of abstaining from full historical state- 
ments, of facts little known to the public. 

It may perhaps surprise many readers to hear, that the 
unfortunate Louis XVlth, a short time prior to the revolu- 
tion, distinguished himself from all his predecessors, by 
zealous endeavours to extend the slave trade of France. 

Such however was the fact. That shocking trade, had 
been nearly abandoned by the French merchants ; and the 
misguided monarch, under evil advice, laboured strenuous- 
ly to induce them to resume it. By an ordinance of Oct. 
1 784, he offered a bounty of forty livres per ton (which re- 
ducing the French measuration of ships to our own standard, 
was equal to eighty livres per ton English) upon all ships 
that should clear cut from the ports of France for the slav e 
trade j and he added premiums on negroes imported into 
the French Colonies, of sixty livres per head, in the wind- 
ward Islands, and one hundred livres in St. Domingo. 

By subsequent ordinances, these premiums were raised by 
him to no less than one hundred and sixty livres in the former 
.colonies, and two hundred and thirty livres in the latter.* 
The natural effect was so enormous an increase of this guilty 

* See Privy Council Report on the Slave Trade, part 6. Title France* 



220 

commerce, that in 1787 and 1788, 60,345 slaves were im- 
ported into St. Domingo alone. On the whole, it may 
be fairly computed, that 300,000 human beings were carried 
into a miserable captivity, at the direct instigation of that 
Government which was soon after so terribly chastised. 

It may perhaps be equally unknown to the British pub- 
lic at large, that at the same memorable period, Spain be- 
gan anew career of oppression in her Colonies, and framed 
a new system of trade for them, expressly in order to en- 
courage the importation of slaves. The facts of this latter 
case, are so various, striking, and important, that they de- 
serve a very particular statement ; but from the absolute 
necessity of compression, I will here only give the recital 
of a decree of his Spanish Majesty, of February 1789, by 
which several of the new regulations were introduced. 

cc In order, says that ill-advised, and since unfortunate 
Monarch," cc to promote by every imaginable means the 
<c great advantages which the encouragement of ' Agricul- 
<c tare must produce, I thought proper to cause the seve- 
Cc veral plans of the introduction of Negroes into the 1s- 
<e lands of Cuba Santo Domingo, Porto Rico, and the 
il province ofCuraccas, to be well examined, with a view of 
ci recurring to the urgent necessity there is of such helps, 
le without which these countries can neither prosper or 
cc flourish, nor produce to the state the immense riches, 
H which the climate and fertility of their soil afford; and 
" having treated this serious subject with that attention 
" which the importance of it claims, I have determined for 
ic the present that this trade shall be carried on under 
<e the following rules and conditions " He afterwards, in 
the 12th Article* recites the object to be, " to procure for 



221 

€€ all his Subjects the greater advantages in the Shire 
x< trade, as well as to augment the number of Cultivators 
<c in the American Colonies"* 

The contemporary conduct of Holland, was of the same 
opprobrious cast. — The Dutch slave trade had also languish- , 
ed, or rather was quite extinct, when in May 1788, the States 
General, at the instance of the Planters of Guiana, resolved 
on vigorous measures for its revival and extension. The 
leading resolution was in the following terms, cc That every 
c< means should be employed to promote a speedy enlargement 
of the slave trade" Accordingly, they voted &50,000 guil- 
ders to the West India Company ; and adopted several re- 
gulations for encouraging the importation of negroes into 
their Colonies. % They were indeed limited to the term of 
six years; but God prescribed nearly the same limitation 
to the commerce, the liberty, and independency of Hol- 
land. 

Portugal also, there is reason to believe, was rapidly 
increasing her Slave Trade at the time of the French revo- 
lution. — With her, however, it was not, as with the other 
powers, occasioned by a systematic change in her laws ; or 
by the direct subornation of the Government. — In her 
share of the scourge, she has been hitherto equally distin- 
guished from them. 

Thus cruelly did the great commercial nations of Europe, 
all at the same asra, resolve to extend the desolation, 
the miseries and crimes of Africa, to the utmost of their 
power. Already they dragged away every year 74,000t 

* Privy Council Report on the Slave, Trade part 6. Title Spain. 

I Same Report, and part Title Holland 

f Edwards' W. Indies, 2 vol. p 58. 



222 

of her unhappy children ; and a great part of her coast 
began to be almost destitute of inhabitants : yet her insa- 
tiable tormentors, were determined to drain the veins of 
her population still more copiously, and to obtain fuller 
meals for their avarice, though they should reduce her to a 
desert. But the eye of the Almighty was over them -, and 
to avenge devoted Africa at least, if not to save her, he 
dropped down among them the French revolution. 

Surely it was a strange coincidence of events, that so 
many different nations should at the same sera, offer new 
and extreme provocation to divine justice, by the same 
species of iniquity, though without any mutual concert - 
and that each of them should immediately after be 
involved, by the same cause, in new and extreme cala- 
mities. — But when we regard the unforeseen and won- 
derful origin of all these calamities, the revolution of 
France, the coincidence becomes still more extraordi- 
nary. Induced, by a common temptation, the lucra- 
tive oppression of the African race, many nations 
start together in a new race of guilt : a strange source of 
unprecedented evil immediately bursts forth, and suddenly 
overwhelms them all. A cruel and unlimited slavery, is 
the subject of their crimes : a lawless and ferocious liberty, 
is made their common scourge. Not only France, but Eu- 
rope, becomes almost a second A frica. Order, security, pub- 
lic morals, the sacred princioles which mitigate the horrors 
of war, and regulate the intercourse of nations, have vanished, 
or are beginning to vanish, from this civilized quarter of 

the globe. The public law of the Slave Coast may soon 

be upon a level with that of polished Europe ; and the 
persons of individuals, like their property, become the 
spoil of predatory war, in these once happy regions*— 



223 

Already, if recent intelligence from Hamburgh may be 
credited, Buonaparte takes credit for great moderation, in 
not selling his captives into slavery; and intimates that 
London, will not be treated so mercifully in that respect, 
as Vienna and Berlin. 

It must be quite unnecessary, with every considerate 
reader, to prove that France herself has had her full share 
of the sufferings, which she has been made the instrument 
of inflicting. — Of all the offending nations, her lot has been 
perhaps the most deplorable. Her glory, is like the light 
of a conflagration ; a lustre fed by ruin, misery and death, 
in the mansion to which it belongs. 

While so many nations have been sustaining extraordi- 
nary evils, has not the hand of Providence distinguished 
some portion of the earth, with blessings equally unusual ? — 
It has.— Let us turn our eyes to the rising Western 
Empire, and we shall see a people, whose fortunes furnish 
a striking contrast to the calamities of European countries. 
As the autumnal storm, while it strips the grove of its leaves, 
and lays prostrate some of its more ancient trunks, favours 
the young and hardy pine, by opening to its aspiring point 
and expanding base, a freer course, and more copious sun- 
shine j so have those revolutionary tempests which have 
'laid waste the ancient realms of Europe, given an accele- 
rated growth to the United States of America, both in 
their strength and stature. — Population, agriculture, com- 
merce, maritime power, how rapidly have they all in- 
creased in that country, since the revolution of France ! A 
new and vast domain also has been acquired, at the expence 
of the Spanish Empire. With such prodigious rapidity 
has the navigation of the United States increased, that 



2^4 

they promise soon to win from Europe, the Trident at 
least, if not the Sceptre, of the Western World. 

Now, let it be well observed, that the United States 
have alone, of all the nations of the earth, during the same 
period, done much to redeem themselves from those 
sins to which, I chiefly ascribe the calamities of Europe. 
Indeed, their government and legislature, with whom 
the corporate responsibility in every country chiefly 
rests, have done all that was in their immediate power ; 
while every state in the Union but one, has long since 
finally delivered itself from the guilt of the African 
Slave Trade. 

It is truly honourable to the President and the Congress, 
to find by intelligence recently arrived, that the former 
has officially congratulated the latter, on the near ap- 
proach of a period when they will possess the constitutional 
power of giving a final blow to that hated commerce. That 
the power will be exercised, immediately after it vests in 
the general legislature, has been long beyond a doubt; 
and though the first of January, 1808, is now at no great 
distance ; the President suggests a mean of accelerating 
the effect of the intended law, by a previous notice, which 
may prevent the inchoation of voyages in the present year, 
to be terminated in the next. 

I think my Country has cause to complain of America ; 
and am not sure that the amicable arrangements lately 
made, are of a kind to reconcile with her pretensions, our 
most essential belligerent rights. But while she acts, in re- 
lation to the most helpless and injured of the human race, 
upon such righteous and liberal principles, it is impossible 
to refuse her our esteem j or to grudge any sacrifice for the 
sake of her friendship that self preservation may permit. 



225 

1 trust that a nation which thus honourably respects the 
sacred rights of humanity and justice, will not long persevere 
in a line of conduct which ministers to the pestilent ambi- 
tion of France, and abridges the only remaining hope of 
liberty in Europe. Indeed, the late outrageous and prepos- 
terous measures of Napoleon, will probably supersede all 
questions that have lately subsisted between this country 
and the neutral powers ; by the new and undeniable rights 

which result to us from such conduct in the enemy. 

May the harmony between England and America be 
settled on the firmest foundations ; and among the many 
sympathies which ought to bind us to each other, may we 
soon have to add a mutual abhorrence, and conventional 
renunciation of the Slave-trade ! 

But while America, has thus honourably distinguished 
herself from other commercial nations, and has been equal- 
ly distinguished by her singular prosperity in the present 
disastrous times ; there is one country, I confess, which hi- 
therto but imperfectly confirms, on a comparative view of 
her fortunes, the hypothesis I aim to establish. 

That country, alas ! is Great Britain.— We have suf- 
fered enough to evince that we have incurred the disfa- 
vour of Heaven ; but other nations less guilty, in regard 
to the Slave-trade at least, have been visited more severely. 
We have in truth exceeded in this respect, all their united 
provocations* Our offences against the helpless Africans, 
have been far greater in amount ; and against God, we have 
sinned more deeply than others, by all the wide difference 
between our national blessings and theirs. Our share of 
the crime is also preeminent, through that peculiar know- 
ledge of its detestable nature, which we have lately acquired. 



326 

I fear it may even be added, that the perseverance of other 
nations in their iniquity, is fairly imputable to England j a? 
being a natural effect of our example, after our deliberate 
examination of the case. 

But England, though severely chastised, is not yet, like* 
some of her fellow-sinners, cast down or destroyed -, and 
if the dangers of the country had finally subsided, this I 
admit would be some apparent drawback on the force of 
the reasons that have been offered for ascribing our public 
calamities to the Slave-trade. 

But here it is, that I find by far the most alarming view 
of this truly awful subject. Let t\\t sad prospects opened in 
the first division of this work, be fairly contemplated ; and 
then let it be remembered, that the very country whose fate 
would demonstrably, in the event of its subjugation by 
France, be the most terrible that ever awaited a nation, is 
the same which has most highly provoked the avenging 
justice of God. — Nor let us harden ourselves on account 
of any seemingly auspicious change in the course of events, 
or the prospect of new confederacies. <c Though hand 
join in hand, the wicked shall not pass unpunished. " 

At the present moment, there is another conside- 
ration which fills me with the most painful anxiety $ 
and which urges me here to conclude this work im- 
perfect though it is, that I may no longer withhold 

from my country, a feeble but seasonable warning. 

In a few days, or weeks, Parliament will have to decide, 
whether It shall redeem the solemn pledge which it has re- 
cently given, for the excision of this dreadful traffic ; or whe- 
ther by a new apostacy, worse by far than any former 
provocation of the same kind, it shall fill up the measure 



227 

of our iniquities, and draw down upon us, perhaps, a speedy 
and signal vengeance. 

I have too high an opinion of the dignity, as well as the 
moral feelings of the British legislature, to regard so oppro- 
brious a relapse as a very probable event. But when I ad- 
vert to the long and sad experience which we have had of 
the fate of such questions in Parliament ; when I remember 
the assiduous opposition, and the still more fatal apathy, by 
which the fairest expectations of the friends of the op- 
pressed Africans, have been repeatedly ruined ; my hopes 
are mingled, I own, with much uneasiness and fear. 

May God, in whose ■ hands are the hearts of all men, 
incline those who, under his permission, are our lawgivers, 
to deliver us at length, without delay, from the guilt of 

innocent blood ! Then only shall I hope that the 

wisest measures of defence will be truly efficacious ; then 
only will solid peace and security, put an end to the dan- 
gers of the country. 



THE END, 



Xi, Edwards, Printer 
Crane Court, i'leet Street, 



DEC 



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